Thinkers or Junkers? Germans in England 1860-1920 & Beyond by Anne Hill Fernie

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. MIDDLE AGES – 1805. multi-ethnic
complex of territories in central Europe, by 1800 numbering 1,500.
Largest incl. Germany, Bohemia, Burgundy and Italy. Mainly
comprised of estates owned by families of Imperial Knights.
Represented in the Reichstag (‘Imperial Diet’). Although ethnically
Germanic, little sense of ‘national’ identity.
FRANCIS II (1768 – 1835). The last Holy Roman Emperor (1792-
1806). In 1804, he founded the Austrian Empire and became Francis
I, the 1st Emperor of Austria ruling from 1804 to 1835, so was named
the one and only Doppelkaiser (double emperor) in history.
1806-1813: CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE. Napoleon I
defeats Austria & Russia: Battle of Austerlitz. Reorganises Germany
into 39 larger states & establishes the Confederation, a league of 16
German states bringing further unification to Germany. German
Princes promote nationalist feelings (already rife in universities) in
order to remove Napoleon’s forces. He is defeated @ Leipzig (1813)
then Waterloo (1815). Promotes sense of a common ‘German’
identity. Congress of Vienna in 1815, the allied forces decided to
dissolve the Confederation of the Rhine to eradicate memory of
French occupation.
GERMAN CONFEDERATION [‘Bund’] (1815–1848. Interrupted
by the ‘German Empire’ [1848-49] then German confederation
again 1850-1866. ‘Bund’ association of 39 German-speaking
states. Austria = president. Austria & Prussia = 2 most powerful
German states. Popular movement for unification but neither was
prepared to let it happen. Prussia & Austria were rivals. This all led to
revolutions in 1848. Liberals & nationalists try to unify the German
state with a liberal constitution called the ‘Frankfurt Convention’
1867: THE NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION (under Prussian
leadership) Dispute over which had the inherent right to rule
German lands ended in favour of Prussia, leading to the creation of
the Confederation under Prussian leadership. South German states
remained independent until they joined the North German
Confederation, which was renamed and proclaimed as the ‘German
Empire’ in 1871.
1871: THE GERMAN EMPIRE
After the victory over French Emperor Napoleon III in the Franco-
Prussian War of 1870, Germany now unified (minus its main rival
Austria) with the Prussian Hohenzollern king as emperor (Kaiser)
Thanks to BBC Bitesize!

1871-1918. Konigsberg now Kaliningrad,
Russia (upper right corner) is where
Kingdom of Prussia originally started in
1220 & spread west.
Holy Roman Empire 1648
NOW

Up until the mid-19th Century,
Germany had been little more
than a cluster of disparate
kingdoms banding together once
in a while for border disputes
with the French or Slavs. To early
19thc Britain, “Germany [was]
this kind of backward country…”
In the mid-19thc it was divided
into 39 separate states. This
changed when Prussia fought off
Napoleon III in the Franco-
Prussian War (1870-71) and
steered the country towards
what begins to look like modern-
day Germany. Then ‘suddenly’,
they crushed the French… the
premier military power in
Europe: “It seemed like a kind of
weird, black miracle at the time.”
This added to Germany’s rapid
industrialisation changed the
perception of Germans from
politically naïve ‘poets &
thinkers’ to that of militaristic &
expansionist.
Prussian Junker officer-corps during
the Franco-Prussian War. ‘Junkers’
were the landowning aristocracy &
dominant class in Prussia. The
Junkers were, as aristocrats go,
relatively poor. Marx dubbed them
‘cabbage-Junkers’.
‘Not through speeches and majority decisions
will the great questions of the day be decided -
that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 -
but by iron and blood.’
Otto von Bismarck (‘The Iron Chancellor,
1862)
Ensign Count v.
Haugwitz-
Hardenberg-
Reventlow (Garde
du Corps)
Hussar

GERMAN ROYALTY:GEORGE FIRST 1714-27
Born 1660 in the German duchy of Brunswick-Lüneberg, the year of the
Restoration. His father Elector of Hanover & mother Elizabeth Stuart
(Winter Queen of Bohemia). His maternal grandmother was the daughter of
King James I/VI.
1680: invited to England as a suitor to James II's daughter, the eventual
Queen Anne. George not keen - returned to Hanover. Prince George of
Denmark & Norway, Duke of Cumberland became Queen Anne’s consort.
She reigned from 1702 to 1714 but despite 17 pregnancies, died childless.
Her successor (who had to be Protestant) was chosen from the Hanover
Electors. As a descendant of James I, George was installed although he
lacked the English skills to understand his own coronation service.
He sent his wife into exile for adultery & lived respectably with his
mistress. His own courtiers were anti-German, Lord Chesterfield wrongly
claimed that George ‘rejected no woman so long as she is very willing,
very fat & has great breasts’ & that he had 2 mistresses: ‘the Elephant’ (in
reality his illegitimate half-sister) & ‘the Maypole’.

[below]: A kilted Future Wilhelm II or Friederich Victor Albert von
Preußen (Hohenzollern), König in Preußen, Deutscher Kaiser with his
father, Prince Frederick of Prussia (future Frederick III). His mother was
Victoria - eldest daughter of Queen Victoria.
Left to right: Prince Arthur (Duke of Connaught), Prince Alfred (Duke of Saxe-
Coburg), Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). Seated -
Queen Victoria and her oldest daughter, also Victoria, (Princess Royal, German
Empress, Queen of Prussia & mother to Kaiser Wilhelm II)

Georg Friedrich Händel,
1685–1759):
commissioned to write four
anthems for the coronation
ceremony of King George II.
He became a subject of the
British crown in 1727.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) born in S.Africa of
German ancestry. The family emigrated from Lower Saxony
to England in the 18thc. The ‘Tolkien’ name still exists for
e.g. ‘Tolkynen’ near Rastenburg, E.Prussia (now in Poland &
called ‘Tolkiny’).
In 1818, Johann H Schröder & his brother founded the
London-based firm Schroders, today one of the world’s
largest investment banks.
Paul Reuter founded the eponymous news agency in 1851. Born as
Israel Beer Josaphat in Kassel, Germany. Was also involved in book
publishing in Berlin & distributing radical pamphlets in the ‘year of
revolutions’ 1848 before moving to England.
Around 5 million people
left Germany during the
nineteenth century. The
German communities
which existed in 19thc
Britain counted people on
every rung of the social
ladder from the
underclass to the middle
classes, reflecting the
divisions of the German
settlements.

The 18thc popularity of beverages led to demand for refined sugar (rather than raw ‘loaf’/jaggery). By 1800, consumption
= 20lb p.year per head. Dutch, German & British traders took over the trade as W. Indies plantations provided raw
materials. Before mid-19thc technical improvements, it was dangerous: risks of fire & explosion. Raw sugar passed
through chutes from the top floor of the refinery to 'blow-ups' below - cast iron tanks with mechanical paddles & steam
pipes to heat the water. ‘Liquor' was filtered through twilled cotton, passed through 'animal charcoal' to remove the
colour, then boiled & processed. Germans dominated what became the major local trade: Beckman, Dirs, Gotcke,
Gramlitch, Lehman, Mackerbath, Neuman, Pretzler, Scheinx, Schuilerman and Wackerworth. The Statistical Soc’s report
(1848) describes them as a cleanly, orderly, and well conducted body of men, chiefly worshippers at the German chapel in
the neighbourhood. By the 1870s, the trade was in decline.
‘Fireproof' refinery in Leman Street, c1850
The work was dangerous & arduous. A number of the German workers
were trying to earn enough for their passage to N. America The
conditions were so bad that even Irish men would not take the work
and German labour was the cheapest in the whole East End.
1875: The sugar cube was
invented by Langen &
Martineau in Germany
Henry Tate bought the
rights to the technology
and introduced cube sugar
to the UK.
Henry Tate & Sons Thames Refinery:
Silvertown, London, 1878

"Essay on Sugar’ Robert Niccol - 1864.
Notable for its vicious attack on the German domination of the trade up until the mid 1840s
They [Germans] are said to have commenced operations in London in 1659, the entire management of English refineries
being entrusted into the hands of these foreigners, under whom, in every sense of the term, the British refiner was an
absolute slave.”
“The Germans who have come to this country from time to time in the capacity of sugar bakers, have never been known to
be accompanied from the Hanseatic towns by their wives and families; but invariably married those of the fair sex belonging
to this country, many of whom, in the event of their husbands being obliged to return to their own country, were, with
their families, left in a state of abject poverty and wretchedness to become a burden upon our parochial and charitable
institutions.”
“A goodly number of the so-called "sugar bakers" arrived in this country from Germany as street musicians : one played the
German flute, another played the organ, while a third exhibited, in a small drum cage, some half-dozen white mice, these
animals driving round the cage at a speed little short of that performed by the fly-wheel of a steam engine. These foreigners
having, got employment in our refineries - which in general they accomplished with little difficulty through the influence of
their countrymen - they soon assumed quite another appearance. It has been frequently remarked by our countrymen that
those foreigners come here in the state of half-clad and half-starved peasants, and after remaining but a short time in this
country and working in the refineries here, they soon become more like princes.”
“The Germans, to speak of them generally, possess many good and amiable qualities : they are for the most part ingenious,
industrious and intelligent. But this opinion must be somewhat modified in speaking of that class of them connected with the
process of sugar refining in this country, who, with but few exceptions, have proved themselves to be rather illiterate, selfish,
and indeed treacherous towards our countrymen.”

Charles Ungerer is on the left
Early 1900s. 2 German bakers in Silver St., Edmonton, London
Christian Breyer, 45, master baker, was born in
Kupfernzel, Germany & lived at 123 Silver Street
German agricultural workers were heavily deployed in the baking trade. An official of the Master Baker’s
trade opined that ‘half of the London Masters and operatives are German…they are a very persevering
lot of men’. After importing the agricultural labourers, German masters would provide their new
employees with food and lodging for two years, then: ‘having picked up a few ideas about the trade they
would go elsewhere and get a place for about 18/- a week’, after which: ‘their thrift pushes them on to
become masters in a small way and so they progress’. They could work up to 112 hours per week
(BLPES cited Panayi, 2014).

Schmidt’s bakery at 66a Brixton Road & 198-200 South Lambeth Road London
Schmidt’s/Wilson’s was on the corner of a row that was built in the mid 1880s along what was then a long
Victorian shopping street filled with butchers, cheesemongers, hat makers, ironmongers, cafes and
florists.
Mr Wilhelm Schmidt came from Gutenberg in Germany. Adopted name of ‘Henry’ and moved in 1886.
Changed surname to Wilson in 1914, after an angry crowd gathered outside the shop because of the
‘Schmidt’ sign. It began to rain; the crowd got wet & Wilhelm slipped out unnoticed. He marvelled at the fact
that not a pane of glass was broken & he and his wife and 2 children at that time were unharmed.

Throughout the
Victorian and
Edwardian periods
approximately 50 per
cent of all Germans in
England and Wales
lived in London,
where the German
population rose from
16,082 in 1861 to
27,290 in 1911. Many
came to the capital to
find work as
hairdressers, sugar-
refiners, bakers, and
waiters, before
settling down with
British wives in the
East End.
London

Waitersinitially came to Britain on a
temporary basis, aiming to improve their
English so that they could return to Germany
& enhance their employment. By 1911 male &
female waiters made up 10% of all waiting
staff in London (the German population
overall was 0.25 of the population of England
& Wales). Unlike native employees, German
staff got no wage and relied entirely on tips.
Hours were 12 hours per day in English
restaurants to 14 hours in a foreign one. Due
to apprenticeships in Germany, they were
properly trained thus valued (Panayi, 2014 ).
The London headquarters of the German Waiters’
Association, ‘Union Ganymede’.

[Above]: "Ich leike Ihre Sosidsches nich."
Denglish from London newspaper Hermann
(1859)
From 1859 London German paper Die Neue Zeit -
The anglicism. ‘meeting’ used in German article.
[Left]: Mr
Wenzel’s
ad was
always
printed
upside
down in
the
publication
Hermann.
By the end of the 19thc, 3 German language newspapers were well established: The Londoner Zeitung
started 1858, the Londoner General Anzeiger and Die Finanzchronik

‘The German
Dentist’ – expert
in American
crowns….an
educated &
experienced lady
is always present
when ladies are
being treated.’
In 1896 30% of London
hairdressers were foreign.
Germans were particularly well
represented having a reputation
for being ‘industrious, cleanly
and sober’. German barbers and
hairdressers had 2 clubs of their
own: the Harmony Club in
Fitzroy Square and the
Concordia in Houndsditch
(Panayi, 2014 ).
German musicians comprised both working-class and middle-class members. Itinerant street musicians
performed throughout the country. Other brass bands performed in the streets & often comprised 12-14
year old youths imported by a master & often exploited. German orchestral players were a significant
component of several British orchestras during the Victorian and Edwardian periods e.g. the Hallé
Orchestra, founded and conducted until his death by Sir Charles Hallé , a German in Manchester.

Homoeopath and therapist Mathias Roth was
born in 1818 in Kaschau (Košice), in the Habsburg
Empire, into a Jewish family. Having supported the
unsuccessful Hungarian revolt against the Habsburgs he
had to flee the country. He arrived in London in October
1849 where, in 1850, he was one of the founding
members of the short-lived Hahnemann Hospital at no.
39 Bloomsbury Square which aimed at relieving the poor
who suffer from acute diseases by receiving them as in
patients (between 1850 and 1852 over 9,000 patients
were treated).
In 1851 he published The Prevention and Cure of many
Chronic Diseases by Movements, a treatise on the
philosophical, physiological & medical foundations of
Swedish gymnastics which had been pioneered by Pehr
Henrik Ling earlier in the 19thc. Roth developed the
concept of scientific physical education, advocating the
teaching of physiology, hygiene, and educational
gymnastics. The Swedish model offered an alternative to
those who were put off by the military connotation of the
German version of strengthening the muscles.

MANCHESTER
By the mid-19thc, Manchester’s industrial supremacy and its tradition of non-
conformist Liberalism attracted many Germans fleeing the revolutionary
chaos of Europe in 1848-9 where the elected German parliament had been
crushed by the Prussian military.
They were also drawn to ‘Cottonopolis’ Manchester, a centre of cotton
production and dyeing technology, and the heart of the industrial revolution.
By 1870 there were 153 German firms in Manchester: banking, textiles &
chemicals such as: Rothschild, Engels and Mond. Owens College & the
University of Manchester had German professors of chemistry, pathology and
physics. Hans Richter succeeded Charles Halle at the eponymous orchestra
after the latter’s death. By the end of the century 3 German places of worship
existed. The Schiller Anstalt was established in 1860 becoming a key cultural
institute where Richard Strauss performed in 1904 before it closed down in
1912. By 1911, Manchester had 1,318 German residents and Liverpool 1,326.
(Panayi, 2014).

Sir Arthur Schuster (1851 –1934).
Franz Arthur Friedrich Schuster. German born physicist known
for his work in spectroscopy, electrochemistry, optics, X-
radiography & the application of harmonic analysis to
physics. Schuster's Integral is named after him. He contributed to
making the University of Manchester a centre for the study of
physics.
Schuster is credited with coining the concept of "antimatter"
in two letters to ‘Nature’ magazine in 1898. He hypothesized
antiatoms, and whole antimatter solar systems, which would
yield energy if the atoms combined with atoms of normal
matter.
His hypothesis was given a mathematical foundation by the
work of Paul Dirac in 1928, which predicted antiparticles and
later led to their discovery.

Born 1834 in Darmstadt, Schorlemmer was hired in 1859 as assistant to chemistry
professor Henry Roscoe @ Owens College, Manchester, where he lived for the rest
of his life. In his first decade in Manchester he published more than 24 scientific
papers, many groundbreaking studies of hydrocarbon chemistry. Elected a Fellow
of the Royal Society in 1871 & appointed to England’s first chair in organic
chemistry, at Owens College, in 1874.
In 1865, Manchester’s Thatched House Tavern was where young German
scientists met to discuss science, & German politics & is where Friedrich Engels
met Carl Schorlemmer, whom he described to Marx as “one of the best fellows I
have got to know for a long time.”
CARL SCHORLEMMER: The Red Chemist’
Schorlemmer became Engels’s closest friend in Manchester, & welcomed into Marx’s extended family
circle in London. Marx dubbed him Jollymeier. Marx, Engels, and Schorlemmer shared a political
commitment & social vision. Schorlemmer joined the International Workingmen’s Association (the First
International), & the German Social Democratic Party. When the police appeared to be opening Marx and
Engels’s letters, he allowed his home address to be used for their correspondence and parcels, and
during trips to scientific conferences in Europe, he helped strengthen links with socialists there.
Schorlemmer helped Marx & Engels to understand the latest developments in the natural sciences. Their
close relationship is mostly undocumented. For the first 5 years of their friendship, Schorlemmer &
Engels lived in Manchester, so there were no letters between them. After Engels moved to London in 1870
none of their exchanges survived to document their long collaboration with the “red chemist.”

FRIEDRICH ENGELS (1820-1895)
In 1842, when Engels (b. in Barmen, Germany) was 22, he was sent by his mill-owner father to work for the
family's joint owned Ermen and Engels' Victoria Mill in Weaste, Salford that made sewing threads. Engels
was a horseman, swordsman, swimmer, skater, artist, journalist, composer, philosopher & political radical
& had published political articles in Germany. His is father wrote: "I have a son at home who is like a
scabby sheep in a flock…" He worked at Victoria Mill in Weaste & in the company's office in Deansgate
(now the House of Fraser site). At night walked around the city in disguise (provided by his partner Mary
Burns, a mill employee), noting the shocking living conditions of working people & in 1844 writing The
Condition of the Working Class in England (published 1845 / in English 1892).
"I once went into Manchester with a bourgeois and spoke to him of the bad, unwholesome method of
building, the frightful conditions of the working people's quarters…The man listened quietly and said when
we parted `And yet there is a great deal of money to be made here; good morning sir'…
‘Deansgate Ragamuffins’ 1880. Wood Street Mission Manchester

A team digging at the Booth Street East
site of the £61 million National Graphene
Institute in Manchester discovered the
foundations of the Albert Club. The site
was previously known as Lawson Street.
Engels is known to have become a
member in 1842, when he was sent to
Manchester to manage his father's textile
factory.
Back in Germany, Engels took part in the
revolutionary uprising against the
Prussian army. After this, in 1848, Engels
& Karl Marx wrote The Communist
Manifesto urging a worldwide socialist
revolution. Pursued by the authorities
Engels took refuge in Switzerland before
arriving back at the Salford factory in
1850 & stayed for 19 years. Under
surveillance from the secret police & had
`official' & `unofficial homes' all over
Manchester where he lived with Mary
under false names to confuse the
authorities. Destroyed over 1500 letters
between himself & Marx after the latter’s
death, so as not to expose their secret life
in the N.W. Ermen & Engels Victoria
Mill was at the bottom of Weaste Lane.
The M602 now smashes through the
former site. Its chimney stood until ca.
1993 when it too was demolished. There
is now no evidence of the world's most
famous mill which Engels part owned
until 1869.

Humbert Wolfe was one of the most popular
British authors of the 1920s.He was also a
translator of Heinrich Heine, Edmond
Fleg and Eugene Heltai (Heltai Jenő)
Frederick Delius, son of an
immigrant wool merchant
Bradford also attracted Germans to its textile manufacturing industry from the 1830s. some were
merchants operating with German bank funding:
I can remember when one of the best known clubs in Bradford was the Schillerverein. And in those
days a Londoner was a stranger sight than a German. There was then, this strange mixture in pre-war
Bradford. A dash of the Rhine or the Oder found its way into our grim runnel – ‘t mucky beck’ .
Bradford was determinedly Yorkshire and provincial. Yet some of its suburbs reached out as far as
Frankfurt and Leipzig. It was odd enough. But it worked. J.B Priestley
Bradfordians included composer Frederick Delius & the Jewish writer Humbert Wolfe.

In the 19th century, the Germans called England Das Land
ohne Musik (‘the land of no music’). In the 19thc, Germany
had produced Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner & Mendelssohn
but it was not until the late 1880s that England produced a
composer of note: Hubert Parry who was very influenced by
the music of Brahms. By the 1890s England had Elgar,
acknowledged as a master but he too was influenced by
German composers. The awareness of this fired up a search
for a ‘national music’ led by Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan
Williams in their collecting of English folk music that
influenced the latter’s own compositions.
Karl Halle was born in Hagen, Germany on 11 April, 1819. He
left Paris in 1848 after the revolution in the city, settling with
his family in London where he changed his name. He came to
the North-West after accepting an offer to run Manchester's
Gentleman's Concerts, which had its own orchestra.
Apparently, the orchestra was so bad, he almost gave up the
post. Hallé is buried in Salford Weaste cemetery. Hans
Richter succeeded him at the eponymous Manchester
orchestra.
Sir Charles
Hallé in
1868.

Although John Wesley made some translations from German in the 18th
century, the 19th century was the golden age of German-English hymn
translation. Most German hymn translations in the Church of England’s
standard hymnal, ‘Hymns Ancient & Modern’, date from this period. ‘We
plough the fields and scatter’ is a translation of a German hymn, ‘Wir
pflügen und wir streuen’, with words taken from a poem by the 18th-
century German poet Matthias Claudius. The English translation first
appeared in 1861 in a collection entitled A Garland of Songs: or an
English Liederkranz compiled by Germanophile clergyman Charles S.
Bere. In a preface he the importance of vocal music in German homes
and communities & hopes that his English collection will encourage a
similar culture amongst the English.
The anonymous translator was Jane Campbell (1817-1878). Her
contributions include a version of ‘Stille Nacht’ beginning ‘Holy Night,
peaceful night’.
The most active 19th-century translator and promoter of German hymns
in Britain was Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878) whose Lyra Germanica
(1855) held over 100 hymns. She was also a social reformer and a
pioneering advocate of women’s higher education. Winkworth moved in
intellectual Christian circles where contemporary German theology was
much admired. Winkworth followed up the success of her first series of
translations with a second series and a study of German devotional
lyrics, Christian Singers of Germany.
Influence of German devotional music
Winkworth’s Lyra Germanica (1855)

The popularity of gymnastics also has its roots in Germany. In Germany, the sport was popularised by Friedrich
Jahn – the ‘father of gymnastics’ who coined the phrase: ‘Brisk, devout, merry & free’. Jahn felt that Germany had
been humiliated by Napoleon & believed the practice of gymnastics would restore physical strength & pride of fellow
Germans. He opened the 1st open-air gym in Berlin (1811). In 1816 he published Deutsche Turnkunst with exercises
& apparatus recognisable today. Jahn was an advocate of a unified, constitutional German state & young gymnasts
were taught to regard themselves as members of a guild for the emancipation of their fatherland. The ‘Turnverein’
(gymnastics association) movement spread rapidly but Jahn’s views were suspiciously liberal to the Prussian
establishment of his time, and he was imprisoned as a subversive. Gymnastics, tainted by association, was officially
banned in Prussia for two decades. The ban was never fully enforced, but it led many of Jahn's supporters and
fellow-gymnasts to emigrate.
Pommel horse exercises from Abbildungen von den Turn-Uebungen, (Berlin, 1845)

The first gymnastics club in Britain was established by Jahn’s protege Ernst G.Ravenstein in 1861. He
moved to London in 1852 and as well as opening the first custom-built gymnasium, was employed as a
cartographer at the Ministry of War. He retired in 1872, declining the position of chief cartographer at the
Royal Geographical Society because he was refused permission to smoke on the premises. He was obsessed
with trying to estimate the planet’s population and predicted that the world would reach saturation point and
run out of resources in the year 2072. He also sat on the councils of the Royal Statistical Society and the
British Association for the Advancement of Science. He briefly taught as Professor of Geology at London’s
Bedford College (1884/5). His work on migration influenced geographers, demographers and sociologists. In
1902, Ravenstein was the first scientist to receive the Victoria gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society.
Ernst Ravenstein
The German Gym,
London ca. 1900

In its first year the Gymnasium attracted 900 members, of whom 500 were German,
203 English, 67 Scottish and the rest spread across different nationalities. On 7
November 1865 the Liverpool Mercury reported the formation of the National
Olympian Association (NOA). Its inaugural meeting was held at the Liverpool
Gymnasium in Myrtle Street. This meeting was the forerunner of the modern British
Olympic Association. In 1866, the newly built German Gymnasium was one of three
venues in London to host the first ever national Olympian Games held during the
modern era. The NOA lasted until 1883 and its Olympian Games ‘were open to all
comers’.
Ravenstein loved boxing so the gym also became a hive of bare knuckle Victorian
boxing. It was also was home to some long forgotten sports such as Indian club
swinging and broadsword practice. The gym was also known for its forward-
thinking and liberal approach, women were just as welcome to train as men.
In 1865 Ravenstein’s gym club moved into
a purpose-built ‘German Gymnasium’
between King's Cross and St Pancras
stations which still survives. It was
designed by Edward Gruning & funded by
the German community in London to
promote the integration of German culture
abroad.

Late 19thc was fixated on the degeneration of individuals –
physically due to industrial poverty but also psychologically
i.e. ‘bad nerves’ the plight of the modern age. As a curative for
neurasthenia doctors prescribed fresh air & physical
exercise. Organised sports, swimming, weight-lifting, or
horse riding, were promoted. Muscular activities were
supposed to sharpen aggression and increase
competitiveness.
Many observers believed that the Church contributed to
man’s meekness. They called for a more robust religiosity.
The phrase ‘muscular Christianity’ appeared in the late 1850s
in connection with Charles Kingsley’s fiction. The underlying
idea was that the image of Christ communicated by the
(Anglican) Church was too effeminate, passive and unheroic.
The age of nervousness needed a leader figure of power &
strength who would turn the feeble into supermen of
masculinity. Nietzsche introduced his Übermensch, and
Marxists created their own myths of the ‘heroic’ working man.

Friedrich Müller (b.1867 in
Königsberg, East Prussia aka Eugen
Sandow. He became the ‘blonde god’ of
19thc manhood, the ‘father of modern
bodybuilding’ & the creator of the London
Institute of Physical Culture (1897), a
gymnasium for bodybuilders. 1901 held the
1st bodybuilding contest at the Royal Albert
Hall in (Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the
judges).
Sandow developed the ‘Grecian ideal’ re. the
perfect male physique. In 1919 Ray Lankester
(Director of the Natural History Dept, British
Museum), mounted an exhibit displaying
examples of global races & Sandow
represented the Caucasian. A Sandow cast,
exemplifying the ideal of European manhood,
was made by Brucciani & Co. & put on a
pedestal.
An era obsessed with the notion of
degeneration projected Sandow’s body as an
antidote for neurasthenia. In 1911, he was
appointed Prof. of Scientific & Physical
Culture to George V. He published Life is
Movement (1919), addressing the physical
reconstruction and regeneration of the people.

Strong German influence on English gothic fiction, partly via the
works of the 18thc German Sturm und Drang (‘storm & stress’
Romantic writing) movement and also from translations of
Schauerromane (‘shudder novels’), themselves often influenced by
British gothic models. This German influence not always welcomed.
Writer Charles Maturin wrote in 1807 of literary ‘horrors’ reaching
British shores on a ‘plague-ship of German letters’.
‘The Critical Review’ (1805) described Matthew Lewis’s The Bravo of
Venice as a ‘Germanico-terrific Romance’. The Bravo was an
adaptation of a real German work, Heinrich Zschokke’s Abällino.
‘Writers of the German school’ and their constant desire to shock are
criticized.
‘Gothic’ was still a synonym for ‘Germanic’ or Teutonic’ & was
another factor in the identification of Germany with things gothic, as
was the Germans’ continued use of ‘gothic’ type.
The Castle of Wolfenbach, (London, 1794)
English Gothic Fiction.

introduced Britain’s ‘German’ monarchs (George IV) to
Scotland. He was also an important mediator of German culture in
Britain. In his early 20s, Scott became ‘German mad’ - fascinated with
German literature. His 1st published work was a translation of two
ballads by Gottfried August Buerger in 1796. In 1797 he produced the
1st English translation of Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen. Scott was
influenced by German writers who were rediscovering and recording
national folklore and mediaeval literature & corresponded with Jacob
Grimm. He also encouraged Robert Pearse Gillies, another Scottish
enthusiast for German literature, to found the Foreign Quarterly
Review a journal devoted to continental literature. Through its pages
Gillies introduced Kleist, to British audiences.
The Scottish writer also championed German
literature & began a correspondence with Goethe after
translating Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre. The critic R.D. Ashton states,
he ‘became convinced that he alone knew anything about German
literature … and that it was his duty to teach it’, and he continued in
this mission for all his writing life.
Walter Scott 1840

In 1844 the German doctor and writer Heinrich
Hoffmann decided to create a children’s book, telling
the stories of children who meet brutal fates as a
result of their bad behaviour. Harriet (Paulinchen in
German) who plays with matches is burnt to death,
and Conrad/Konrad, whose punishment for thumb-
sucking is to have both thumbs cut off by a tailor with
giant scissors (‘the great, long, red-legg’d scissor-
man’ in the English version).
The stories are written in rhyme with cartoonish
illustrations, like a forerunner of the modern
comic. Der Struwwelpeter (1845) was an instant
success. The 1848 English translation became a
bestseller.
On the outbreak of war in 1914 both German and
British writers used Hoffmann’s book as a basis for
satire. The German Kriegs-Struwwelpeter replaces the
naughty children with representatives of the various
anti-German allies, while the poems in
E.V.Lucas’s Swollen-Headed William all describe the
misdeeds of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Although still available in Germany it is out
of print in England – the stories considered
too traumatising for young children these
days….. Struwwelpeter is often
described as a sadistic & authoritarian
attempt to frighten children into obedience
& make them conform to a rigid social
code.
The opposite is true. Hoffmann wrote it as a
reaction against books which he thought
were too moralistic or accepting of social
norms. Even in the most ‘horrific’ tales, the
exaggeration of the children’s fates, both in
the stories & illustrations, was intended for
comic rather than frightening effect.
Harriet’s terrible fate from The English Struwwelpeter

Britain in the early 19thc, viewed Germany as a ‘backward’ country. By 1871 Prussia had won the Franco-Prussian war,
Germany was a unified country & the premier military power in Europe. Fear grew that Germany might even invade Britain.
Negative comments started to emerge in the press in the 1870s & the concept of the ‘invasion novel’ was born. In 1871
Lieutenant-Colonel George Tomkyns Chesney anonymously published his story ‘The Battle of Dorking’ in Blackwood’s
Magazine. Chesney believed that Great Britain was unprepared for an armed invasion from Germany, especially after its
victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The story is told from 50 years in the future when a soldier tells the story to
his grandson. Using ‘fatal engines’, the German navy destroys the British fleet. Soldiers land in Harwich. They march
upon London; the final battle is at Dorking in the Surrey Hills. The British army is defeated. Germany takes control of
Britain, The Empire is disbanded. The story was a sensation. The British were shocked out of their complacency re.
military superiority. The government reassured the public that plans to review the army were in hand. The story was
published in a separate booklet and sold in tens of thousands throughout Europe. Sequels included What Happened after
the Battle of Dorking (1871), The Siege of London (1871), The Invasion of England (1882) and The Battle off Worthing: why
the Invaders never got to Dorking (1887).

There had been an overall economic downturn in the 1880s which no doubt played its part in the increasing
xenophobia. This coincided with the highest recorded peak of German poor in London. The Select
Committee on Emigration and Immigration were concerned specifically about the number of poor Germans
entering the country assessing how much was being spent by the Society of Friends of Foreigners in
Distress & the German Society of Benevolence.
The German sector of St Pancras was poverty stricken with high incidences of prostitution & overcrowding.
The Royal Commission on Alien Immigration heard from a barrister that German burglars were importing
sophisticated tools to ply their trade and that German waiters were using false references using their trade
as a cover to steal from inhabitants of lodging houses (Panayi, 2014).
‘An astonishing number of swindlers and impostors exist among the Germans of London’ (Katscher cited Panaji,
2000). An 1860s report re. German Catholics in London claimed that people who had committed crimes in
Germany continued this once they arrived in London. Sponza (1887 cited Panaji, 2000), identified the main
criminal activities of Germans in London as: larceny, receiving of stolen goods, housebreaking, forgery &
crimes against the person.
Germans became involved in prostitution either as pimps and brothel keepers or as prostitutes. Women
became involved in this trade either by answering bogus advertisements in German newspapers, which
offered them respectable employment, or by being enticed upon their arrival in London, where the major
area of their activities consisted of Leicester Square.
1880s POVERTY AND CRIME

After Expo 1876 in Philadelphia, German products had been condemned
as being: “….cheap and of low quality” by experts there.
This prompted a huge effort on behalf of Germany to improve their
manufacturing reputation. Due to low wages & advantageous
manufacturing conditions, it was very successful to the extent that
exports rose and Britain started to feel threatened.
The "Made in Germany" label is not a German invention. It came about as
part of the British Merchandise Marks Act (1887). This ensured that all
foreign products that could threaten the success of British merchandise
were branded with a label encouraging the UK to Buy British. It was
particularly aimed at German products affecting cutlery, scissors & knives
from Solingen which threatened the Sheffield production & machinery
from Saxony.
It was hoped that German mechanical engineering – already superior to
the British – would become stigmatized by being given a negative label.
The plan backfired. The label "Made in Germany" ultimately developed
into a sign of quality, though it took a while.

On 28 October 1908, the paper published an interview with Kaiser Wilhelm who stated: ‘You English are mad,
mad, mad as March hares. What has come over you that you are so completely given over to suspicions
quite unworthy of a great nation?’
Wilhelm had originally wanted to promote his views on Anglo-German friendship, but became so over-
emotional that the interview alienated the British, French, Russians, and Japanese. Wilhelm implied that
Germans cared nothing for the British; that the French and Russians had attempted to incite Germany to
intervene in the 2nd Boer War & that the German naval buildup was targeted against the Japanese, not Britain.
The British leadership had already decided that Wilhelm was somewhat mentally disturbed, and saw this as
further evidence of his unstable personality, as opposed to an indication of official German hostility.
The Daily Telegraph crisis affected Wilhelm's self-confidence & mental health. He suffered a severe bout of
depression from which he never fully recovered. His chancellor Prince Buelow noted: ‘A dark foreboding ran
through many Germans that such...stupid, even puerile speech and action on the part of the Supreme Head
of State could lead to only one thing - catastrophe.’
‘The Telegraph Affair’ (1908)

DIE DEUTSCHE KOLONIE IN LONDON
BOOK, 1913
The book was published one year before the outset of
WW1 to mark Kaiser Wilhelm II’s silver jubilee, with
an appeal for contributions towards a commemorative
‘Imperial Jubilee Fund’ to support Germans & German
institutions in Britain.
There is a history of German settlement in Britain &
an overview of the German community & institutions
in London & beyond, demonstrating the strength &
vitality of this community shortly before WWI.
Some 15 German churches and congregations in
London are described, as well as 12 in other cities
including Edinburgh, Bradford, Liverpool &
Newcastle.
Die deutsche Kolonie in London (London, 1913).
British Library 8139.k.9.

DIE DEUTSCHE KOLONIE IN LONDON BOOK, 1913
Richard Pflaum in his introduction to the ‘German Colony in
England’ ( 1913) praises the Kaiser for having gained
international recognition for Germany by peaceful means but
notes:
For the Germans in England a German war could have led to
the most incalculable consequences, because such a war
would surely have developed into a world war, in which the
people among whom we live, and whose hospitality we have
enjoyed for centuries, would have been forced on to the side
of Germany’s opponents.
It is illustrative of how quickly the relationship with
Germany ‘turned bad’. Even in 1913, the authors seem
unaware of the rise in British anti-German sentiment at
both popular and political levels, even suggesting that
Wilhelm II is admired by the English.

Christmas truce of 1914. Soldiers from the 5th London Rifle Brigade standing alongside German
Saxon regimental fighters in the Belgian village of Ploegsteert.
War declared Aug 4th, 1914 after Germany invades Belgium.

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, ca.
53,000 Germans resided in the UK, making up the
3rd largest minority group after the Irish and
Jewish. Some had their own businesses: barbers,
bakers or restaurateurs (Soho's Charlotte Street,
was nicknamed Charlottenstrasse because of the
number of German restaurants & bakeries);
others worked as governesses or waiters. Many
had married British people; some had sons
serving in the British armed forces.
When war was declared, many returned home
with relative ease, as late as January 1915,
travelling via neutral Holland. Those who had
British families, however, had little incentive to
leave.
‘Enemy aliens’ had to register with the Police, and
their movements were restricted, but they
continued to work and socialise as they had
before.

Within a few days of war being declared the War
Office wrote to King George V asking him to remove
the Kaiser (his 1st cousin), from his honorary
command of the Dragoon Guards & his position as a
British admiral. The British naval career of First Sea
Lord of Prince Louis of Battenburg, a German prince
who had married a granddaughter of Queen Victoria,
was also terminated. He was born in Austria but had
become a naturalised British citizen aged 14 & had
served in the British Navy since 1868. He anglicised
his family name to Mountbatten. The Royal Family
changed theirs from Saxe-Coburg/Gotha to Windsor
in 1917.
In Coventry, the German-born lord mayor Siegfried
Bettman was forced to resign even though he was a
naturalised British citizen and chairman & founder of
the city's Triumph Motorcycles. a Justice of the
Peace, a Freemason, & a member of the Liberal Party.
Under new laws, the 60,000-strong German
community in Britain had to ask for permission to
travel more than five miles and were forbidden from
living in "restricted areas", largely by the coast.
The Trading With The Enemy Act was then passed
in September 1914, and hit many German-run
businesses.
OUTBREAK OF WAR 1914

Kaiser Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria's oldest
grandson who spoke English without an
accent, had a strained relationship with his
English mother and blamed an English
doctor for the withered arm he suffered from
birth. He loathed the English. War time
legend has it that this ‘may’ have also
stemmed from a fight on Rapparee beach in
Ilfracombe in 1878 when he was 19 & on
holiday. Details of the fight were later
circulated among British soldiers in the
trenches to boost morale.
Prince Frederick William started throwing
stones at beach huts & holiday makers. Local
boy Alfie Price ticked him off. Wilhelm called
him a ‘peasant boy’ & ordered him to back
down. Alfie stated: 'I don't care a dash who
you are - stop chucking stones or it will be
the worse for you.’ Alfie punched Wilhelm
and bloodied his nose.
The Ilfracombe Chronicle resurrected the
story in Sept 1914 as a morale booster.
Wilhelm's German minders paid Alfie 30
shillings to keep the fight (witnessed by Alf's
father, Philip, and his brother-in-law, Tom
Gibbs) quiet.

Hostility to ‘aliens’/foreigners increases. Accused of being unclean, dishonest & taking jobs/undercutting
wages. ‘British Brothers League’ founded London’s E.End 1901 to oppose mainly Jews from E.Europe. Fear
of pauper aliens had led to the 1905 Aliens Act. Anglo-German diplomatic rivalry of the Edwardian years led to
paranoia that all Germans were working for the Kaiser in preparation for a German invasion. This suspicion
attracted the name ‘Spy Fever’.
Competitive German Industry
overtaking a Sluggish Britain.
‘There was an old lady , went to
market to sell her goods, fell
asleep on the world’s highway.
By came a stout German peddler
& cut her petticoats all around
her.’
‘The New German Offensive: ‘We
were never really a military nation:
THIS is the true German weapon’

“At Newcastle yesterday morning: Frederick Sukowski
(26) was charged with being a suspected person under
the Official Secrets Act and was remanded. It was stated
that he had been found in the neighbourhood of the
principal Tyne shipyards and had in his possession two
measuring gauges, foot rules, and map of Great Britain,
giving railroad and other measurements. He was
conveyed to the police barracks, where he said he was an
Englishman & an undergraduate of Oxford. He had in his
possession many valuable sketches, & his replies not
being considered satisfactory he was kept in custody, &
will be brought before the Petty Sessions.
“A German was arrested on the Cotton Powder
Company's works at Faversham, and taken to the police
station. The police refuse all information about him.”
Excerpt from autobiography A Sort of Life
(1972): ‘There were dramatic incidents even in
Beckhamstead. A German master was denounced to my
father as a spy because he had been seen under the
railway bridge without a hat, a dachshund was stoned in
the High Street, and once my uncle Eppy was summoned
at night to the police station and asked to lend his motor
car to help block the Great North Road down which a
German armoured car was said to be advancing towards
London.’.
1915: German cartoon
mocking English attacks on
Dachshounds.

Princess Victoria’s German governess Baroness Lehzen had led to
an influx of German governesses & teachers into England to teach in
schools or private homes. A ‘Verein deutscher Lehrerinnen in
England’ was founded in 1876 to offer advice & assistance. By the
beginning of the 20th century it was common & fashionable for
upper-class families to employ a ‘Fräulein’ to help educate their
daughters, despite rising anti-German sentiment. They fell under
particular suspicion re. spying on outbreak of war. In 1916, the Prime
Minister of New Zealand specifically mentioned governesses,
alongside waiters and clerks, as Germans employed in Britain who
had used their position to collect information which was ‘promptly
conveyed to Berlin.’ Even the British Prime Minister was suspected
of harbouring a spy in the form of his children’s long-serving
governess Anna Heinsius.
The journal of the Association of German Teachers in England. Like
most British German newspapers and periodicals, it ceased
publication in August 1914.

A popular example of the ‘governess as spy’ theme
was the play The Man who Stayed at Home (1914).
Set in a seaside hotel, the languid & flippant British
secret agent hero, is a spy-catcher. ‘Fräulein
Schroeder’ is: ‘a tall, angular and unattractive spinster
with a dictatorial manner and entirely unsympathetic
soul.’ Schroeder is in cahoots with the hotel’s owner,
‘Mrs Sanderson’ (German widow of an Englishman),
her ‘son’ Carl (actually ‘Herr von Mantel, son of
General von Mantel, and paid spy of the German
Government’) and the waiter ‘Fritz’ (who, despite a
thick stage-German accent, manages to convince
everyone that he is Dutch).
All of them are spies in the service of their ‘Imperial
Master’ in Berlin. The play had a long run in London,
was filmed twice (1915 and 1919) & adapted as a novel
(1915).

Jan 1915: ‘Tackling the treacherous German!’
Sept 1915: ‘The Boys Friend is running a
gigantic anti-German league for British boys &
girls. Enlist to-day & crush Germany!
Feb 1915. ‘One, two, three!’ sang out Bob
Cherry. ‘GO!’ ‘Whiz!’ The German spun in
the air, crashed down on the frozen pond
& through the thin ice. ‘Groogh! Ach!
Huhhhhh!’

The April 1915 a warning appeared in the New York Times under an
advert for the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania's (sister ship to the Titanic)
voyage to Liverpool. In February the German navy had declared that
there was to be a U-boat blockade around Great Britain and Ireland
and that any allied vessel would be sunk without warning. Lusitania
left New York @ noon on 1st May 1915 on route to Liverpool. Mr.
Charles Sumner, the general manager of the Cunard Company
commented:
“The truth is, that the Lusitania is the safest boat on the sea.
She is too fast for any submarine. No German war vessel can
get her.”
Lusitania, 1914

On 7th May 1915, German U-boat U-20, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger, was patrolling off the southern
coast of Ireland when it spotted the Lusitania. At 14:10 it fired a single torpedo which hit starboard, directly behind the
bridge. 1,198 of the 1,959 people aboard died. It was a key moment in WW1 & in the turning point in Anglo-German relations.
In the same week, a Zeppelin raid struck Southend & Germany's 1st use of poison gas was reported from the Western Front
trenches. London was gripped by fear. An article in The Times on 13th May, 1915, referred to "the coming German aerial
attack" on London, "not an empty threat, but may soon be an extremely vivid reality."
New York Times, 8th May, 1915
A mass grave in Ireland for the victims

Liverpool was a cosmopolitan city with many Germans running pork butchers businesses. A number of the Lusitania crew
were Liverpudlians & as news spread, an anti-German backlash began. Feelings were already high following reports of the
use of gas on Allied troops and violence broke out in Liverpool with shops having their windows broken and contents
ransacked.
Violence continued to grow across the city and on the 10th May 2015, the Liverpool Echo reported,
“Many of the shops on all parts of the city have been more or less wrecked. It was stated in official quarters that
over 50 shops, mostly in the pork trade, have been attacked.”
Over the following days riots spread across the country, including Manchester, London and further afield to Johannesburg.
All stills from BFI PLAYER
footage of the Liverpool anti-
German riots 1915

Destruction at Christian Yaag's butcher’s shop in Great
George Street. While Yaag was German he had two
nephews serving in the British army.
The Liverpool Echo reported: ‘A large pork shop at the corner of Smithdown Road and
Arundel Avenue had been absolutely wrecked, all the windows had been smashed and the
stock commandeered or thrown into the street. Women hurled strings of sausages at one
another and one woman from a neighbouring street went down on her knees and
scrubbed the pavement with a joint of pork. Other women went home with their aprons
full of pork and bacon. After sacking the shops, the invaders went into the living room
upstairs and spread destruction …’ 200 businesses were destroyed.

Amelia Wieland (above)
died in 1917 and is buried
in a pauper's grave in
Manchester's Southern
Cemetery. She was
attacked during the anti
German riots in May 1915.
Her husband Adolf was
interned in a camp & then
sent back to Germany. He
never saw his wife & 8
children again.
MANCHESTER/SALFORD
In Ancoats the windows of every house
in one street were smashed...just
because it was called ‘Germany St.'...it
changed its name to Radium St...

It had become clear that the crowd
were not particularly concerned to
attack only German businesses, & were
more interested in clearing pork
butchers of their stock: “One man
coolly attempted to march past a police
inspector with a flitch of bacon over his
shoulder & when asked where he was
taking it he laconically remarked,
“Home.” He was advised to deposit his
flitch at the Attercliffe Police Station,
and this he did, leaving also his name
and address.”
Yorkshire Telegraph & Star, 14 May
1915
Another group of women, “who had
possessed themselves of bunches of
black pudding & polony, politely
requested a Press photographer to take
a snapshot of them, which he
obligingly did.”
Yorkshire Telegraph & Star, 14 May
1915
SHEFFIELD
On his way home, the reporter was accosted by a gang of young people “who appeared to have an idea that
anyone who was not rejoicing with them & participating in the work of destruction must of necessity be a
German spy.”
Yorkshire Telegraph & Star, 14 May 1915
Shop in Attercliffe Road,
Sheffield which was
attacked and stripped of
its contents, May 1915

The combination of the sinking, ‘spy fever’ (perpetuated by the mass media), & the Zeppelin menace hovering
over London, caused further riots in London, Manchester, Salford, Sheffield, Rotherham, Newcastle & South
Wales against the German community. A state of 'Germanophobia‘ spread throughout the country.
‘Although starting later, London managed to
compress into the space of twenty-four hours so
much destruction and violence as were spread over
four or five days in Lancashire. Indeed, as far as
personal violence is concerned, yesterday’s outbreak
in London was vastly more serious than anything that
has occurred in the North. Some Germans were
pursued into their homes by the mob and pitched
through the windows into the street, others were
ducked in troughs, and others had their clothing
stripped off their backs. The police, assisted by
special constables, and in some cases by Territorials,
did what they could to protect the fleeing aliens, but
they were able to do very little owing to the size and
ferocity of the crowds.’
Guardian 13th May 1915

The shop below was a tobacconists located at 136 Crisp St, Poplar, E.London, belonging to German/Jewish immigrant
Adolph Scholenfeld who arrived in London in the 1860s/70s. In 1901 he was living at 552 Mile End Road with his wife
Hermine and their 4 children Anna (18) Minnie (17) Adolph (16) and Lily (11). After the riot they were given shelter by
their neighbours & the family changed their name to Sheffield as a direct result. 54 year old baker Frederick William
Zohn of Galleywell Street killed himself after repeated attacks. He was a naturalized citizen and had been resident for
29 years.

1915 London rioter is arrested
DH Lawrence (married to a German) stated: "When I
read of the Lusitania ... I am mad with rage myself. I
would like to kill a million Germans - two million."
‘The rioting was naturally worse near the docks, for in
many of the little streets thereabouts every second
butcher’s or baker’s shop is German. The ransacking
of one shop in a street near the Custom-house was
typical. To begin with a crowd of boys invaded the
shop – a baker’s and pastrycook’s – and simply fell
upon all the eatables within reach. The German
occupants at once ran away. Terrified Germans who
were found hiding under beds, were thrown out into
the street, beds and all. A German piano was set up in
the street and British patriotic songs were played
upon it.’

‘The Chief Constable of Manchester, Mr R.
Peacock, issued orders yesterday for the
arrest of all German shopkeepers in the
city. About 100 of them were taken in
charge during the day. The order, of
course, applied only to those Germans who
have not been naturalised; to deal with
naturalised citizens special legislation
would be necessary.
It went almost without saying that some
drastic action would have to be taken in
regard to German people in Manchester.
The riotous conduct of crowds in different
parts of the city on Monday night and
Tuesday made it evident that in the
interests of the Germans themselves
something must promptly be done.’
The periodical John Bull, owned and edited by Horatio
Bottomley (a disgraced former MP who would later
serve time for fraud), launched a vendetta:
"I call for a vendetta against every German in Britain,
whether 'naturalised' or not ... you cannot naturalise
an unnatural beast, a human abortion, a hellish freak.
But you can exterminate it. And now the time has
come."
Some Germans (like the Royal Family) had already
changed their names. The artist, Georg Kennerknecht,
had become George Kenner, but Bottomley sent his
reporters out to scour the deed poll records,
publishing lists of "assumed" and "real" names.

On the 12th May 1915, Prime Minister Asquith said,
“No one can be surprised that the progressive
violation by the enemy of the usages of
civilised warfare and the rules of humanity,
culminating for the moment in the sinking of
the "Lusitania," has aroused a feeling of
righteous indignation in all classes in this
country to which it would be difficult to find a
parallel. One result, unhappily, is that innocent
and unoffending persons are in danger of
being made to pay the penalty of the crimes of
others.”
On the 13th May 1915, the P.M. announced,
“Dealing first with the non-naturalised aliens,
there are at this moment 19,000 interned and
there are some 40,000 (24,000 men and 16,000
women) at large. We propose that in existing
circumstances, prima facie, all adult males of
this class should, for their own safety, and that
of the community, be segregated and interned,
or, if over military age, repatriated.”

Frith Hill Detention camp 1915 Banforth postcard

The first 500 German prisoners, initially civilians, arrived in Handforth early in November 1914. By the end
of Nov’, there were over 1,500: incl. 573 Germans from the German colony in E. Africa. By April 1915, there
were over 2,000 prisoners incl. crew of the battleship SMS Blücher, resulting in Handforth district having
more German than British inhabitants. Prisoners helped on local farms & collected mail from the post
office (under guard). When German soldiers captured from the front line started to arrive, crowds gathered
at the railway station. The Manchester Evening News reported on 17th March 1915: “Great excitement
prevailed at Handforth & Wilmslow today when it became generally known that about 600 German
prisoners taken during heavy fighting in the North of France were expected to arrive for internment at the
concentration camp.”
, near interned ‘aliens’ from the Manchester/Liverpool area in an empty
1861 calico printers. In 1914 it was the barracks for 2,000 men of the 3rd & 4th Battalions of the Manchester
Regiment. In 1914, the War Office decided it should be used as a “ ” for enemy aliens.
Parcels from home

Model ship built by Kaiserliche Marine prisoners
Handforth:Unter-Offiziers’ gardens
Prisoners were paid to make shoes, tailor,
carpenter & garden. The library had 3,000
books. 30 teachers held classes. Patriotic
celebrations: Kaiser, Bavaria, Christmas,
N.Year & Saxony days were allowed.
Management of Handforth was by an interned
German Feldwebel-Leutnant, who was a
member of all the committees
By 1916 there were 2,713
prisoners at Handforth, all
Germans. 2,399 military prisoners,
313 naval prisoners, and one
civilian.

Escape attempts were a frequent, yet with detailed
descriptions published in local newspapers escapees were
soon recaptured. Nearly 20,000 passed through the camp
during its wartime operation.
More than 20 men died in the camp, the majority from the
Spanish Flu epidemic. They were buried in Wilmslow
Cemetery and later reburied in the German Cemetery at
Cannock Chase, Staffordshire.
Theatre production at the camp.
A 1916 inspection noted:
“There was no criticism of any kind to
be made of this camp, and everything
was found in excellent condition. The
German Feldwebel-Leutnant, who has
charge of the running and care of the
camp seems to have the confidence of
the men, who all appeared to be in
excellent physical, mental, and moral
condition.”
The site is now a housing estate

KNOCKALOE INTERNEE JOSEPH PILATES: INVENTOR OF THE
‘CONTROLOGY/PILATES’ EXERCISE SYSTEM
The Knockaloe internment camp on the Isle of Man was opened in 1914 to hold
5,000 enemy aliens who were of military age, but the Government ordered that the
camp should be extended to accommodate another 5,000.
Pilates (b.1883) came from a poor family in München-Gladbach in Prussia, son of a
metalworker & gymnast. His mother had an interest in natural medicines & naturopathy. The
father took Joseph to his local sports club where that offered distance running, marching &
wrestling. He learnt boxing which had been illegal in Germany, unlike in Britain, & so it was a
largely unpractised sport. It focussed on strengthening mind & spirit in harmony with the
body, principles which Pilates later focussed on in his own exercise system. By early 1914, a
widowed Pilates arrived in Britain, settling in London & working in a sanatorium. He also
taught boxing & fought competitively, London being a centre for the sport. He taught body
building to the police & the art of self-defence to detectives. As ‘Germanophobia’ grew, it
became difficult for Germans to find conventional work. Pilates found work as a performer in
a circus. It was when he was making a living as a boxer and a circus tumbler he began
developing a series of exercises to relax him.
At the outbreak of WW1 he was with a circus in Blackpool. In August 1914, 30 year old
Pilates was one of the 1st enemy aliens to be interned, firstly in Jersey, then Lancaster
temporary internment camp in a derelict former waggon works, before his main internment at
Knockaloe. By the time Joseph arrived there were over 16,000 internees and a German
“home” and culture, including physical culture, had been established.

Knockaloe: the ‘birthplace of German Boxing’.
The Knockaloe Camp 4 internal newspaper, Lager Zeitung (Jan 1917) noted that Pilates was involved in
supervising sport at Knockaloe. He was the referee at a 10 round boxing match in which one contestant,
Seiffert, went down in the 8th round. Pilates worked in the hospital & devised machines to help rehabilitate
disabled internees designing chairs, beds & exercise equipment. He took the springs from the beds and
attached them to the top and bottom of the beds to provide resistance to assist in the exercises.
Internee Hospital Orderly (Pilates?) &
medical staff

“Turnfest” (gymnastics festival) Kockaloe on 27.9.1915
Pilates researched anatomy, sport & medicine in the
camp library
The principles of Contrology were revealed to him when he watched his fellow-prisoners sink into
apathy and despair. He noticed how the camp cats, though thin, were lithe and active and studied
how they stretched their muscles. He devised a series of exercises which the fellow inmates
practised. They ended the war in better shape than when it started, and when the great influenza
epidemic came not one of them came down with it. Once free, Pilates went to the USA, opening a
gym & propagating the ‘Pilates’ system.

Carl Bernard Bartels (1866-1955) sculptor of
the Liver Birds was interned at both Knockaloe
& Handforth. Son of a wood carver from the
Black Forest moved to London permanently in
1887 & became a naturalised. Carl was an
acclaimed sculptor & woodworker & won a
competition to design 2 birds for the twin clock
towers of the Royal Liver Building . Bartels’
birds were installed in 1912. The statues are 18
feet tall & each one holds a sprig of seaweed in
its mouth.
The Liver Building was groundbreaking in its
use of reinforced concrete, was Europe’s first
skyscraper & the tallest building in Europe
from 1911 to 1932.
Bartels was arrested in May 1915 at the height
of anti-German feeling during WW1. Interned at
Handforth then by the end of 1915, at
Knockaloe where he remained until 1918. Then
forcibly repatriated to Germany, separated from
his wife, children & their London home where
they had lived for 20 years.

The Liver bird has been associated with Liverpool for 650 years. The 1st known reference by name dates to 1668: a
ceremonial mace presented to the town by the Earl of Derby. The mace was decorated with a “leaver” bird. Changes in
spoken and written language have resulted in “leaver” being changed to “Liver”.
Historians believe that early representations of the bird were supposed to show an eagle, because of King John’s
association with the bird. King John had granted the town’s charter, but other 17thc representations suggest that it may
be a cormorant. Cormorants would have been familiar to all sea-faring families, as there was still a large cormorant
population off of the coast of Liverpool at this time. Bartels’ birds are half eagle & half cormorant.
photo by Ron Formby

1915 ~ 1916
The war going badly & Liberal P.M. Herbert
Asquith (1908-1916) = forced into forming a
coalition government on 7 May 1915 after a
munitions shortages crisis. Situation worsens
with the failure of the Dardanelles expedition &
continuing stalemate on the Western Front
putting increasing pressure on Asquith. 1916
brought the Easter Rising in Dublin and the
disastrous Battle of the Somme (420,000 British,
500,000 German & 200,000 French casualties
between July & Nov). Conscription was
introduced but Asquith was blamed in the press
for military failures. In December 1916, Asquith
resigned & was replaced by Lloyd George who
had been plotting against him. The country’s
morale was low, people were keen for distraction
with a press primed to supply gossip &
propaganda.
Herbert Asquith [left] & Lloyd George
Asquith at a rugby game with King George V

Noel Pemberton Billing (b.1881)
Billing was a man of his time & the ensuing case illustrates the extent
of hypocrisy, paranoia xenophobia & public thirst for distracting ‘fake
news’ by 1918. At 13 Billing set fire to his headmaster’s office & ran
away from home, worked his passage on a ship to S.Africa & worked
as a manual labourer until able to enlist in the mounted police force,
where he was a talented boxer. He entered the British Army at 18 to
fight in the Boer War. Wounded twice & invalided out of the army in
1901. In 1903 returned to England & opened a garage in S.London
then in 1908 an aerodrome in Farnbridge. This funded his
experiments in building aeroplanes. In 1909 he founded an
aeronautical periodical called Aerocraft & set up his own aircraft
company. By 1913 he had enough capital to found a yard on
Southampton Water, where he pioneered the construction of flying
boats (supermarines) His company gained a reputation for producing
planes that looked amazing, but flew terribly. He sold the
‘Supermarine’ company (that later went on to develop the ‘Spitfire’
fighter plane.) & joined the Royal Navy Air Service.
Billing’s ‘Supermarine P.B.31E Nighthawk’ was
intended to intercept Zeppelins. A failed design, it had
quad wings & a heated cabin, but a slow rate of climb,
low ceiling, and unreliable engines. It only flew as a
prototype

In 1916 Billing became independent MP for E. Hertfordshire. Drove a lemon-yellow Rolls Royce
& stated his love of: "fast aircraft, fast speed-boats, fast cars and fast women". Campaigned for
a unified air service, helped force the government to establish an air inquiry & advocated
. Became adept @ exploiting a variety of popular
discontents. His wife was half-German but he advocated deportation of aliens in case they were
spying on the country. Founded ‘ journal, part-funded by Lord Beaverbrook
(owner of the Daily Express). Claimed there was a secret society called the , a pro-
German ‘confederacy of evil men’ - taking orders from Berlin & dedicated to the downfall of
Britain by subversion of the military, Cabinet, Civil Service & the City, using ‘spiritualists,
whores & homosexuals’ as their conduits. Opposed the Russian Revolution, fearing that
Bolsheviks would force through a peace deal between Britain and Germany. ‘Boloists’
(Communists) were funding this. In 1917, journalist Arnold White (author of ‘The Hidden Hand’)
wrote in ‘The Imperialist’ that Germany was controlled by ‘Urnings’ (homosexuals) who were
‘systematically seducing young British soldiers’, thus urging internment of all Germans:
When the blond beast is an urning, he commands the urnings in other lands.
They are moles. They burrow. They plot. They are hardest at work when they are
most silent.
Urnings, Boloism, the Black Book and the Unseen Hand

In Jan 1918, Billing published an article that publicised
the ‘Berlin Black Book’: "There exists in the Cabinet
Noir of a certain German Prince a book compiled by the
Secret Service from reports of German agents who
have infested this country for the past twenty years,
agents so vile & spreading such debauchery and such
lasciviousness as only German minds can conceive
and only German bodies execute.“
Claimed that the book held 47,000 names of perverts
being blackmailed by Germans including: ‘Privy
Councillors, youths of the chorus, wives of Cabinet
Ministers, dancing girls, even Cabinet Ministers
themselves, while diplomats, poets, bankers, editors,
newspaper proprietors, members of His Majesty's
Household’ who were being ‘held in enemy bondage’.
In Feb 1918 changed the magazine’s name to ‘The
Vigilante’ & with Henry White founded ‘The Vigilante
Society’ with the "object of promoting purity in public
life". Published an anti German and anti-Semitic article
stating the Unseen Hand was plotting to spread
venereal disease:
The German, through his efficient and clever agent, the
Ashkenazim, has complete control of the White Slave
Traffic. Germany has found that diseased women
cause more casualties than bullets. Controlled by their
Jew-agents, Germany maintains in Britain a self-
supporting - even profit-making - army of prostitutes
which put more men out of action than does their army
of soldiers.

Maude Allan (Beulah Maude Durrant) 1873-1956
8th June 1908 the New York Times noted: "Miss Maud Allan, the
barefooted and otherwise scantily clad dancer, in whose favor a very
profitable boom has been worked up in London …has been warned
off the stage in Manchester, which is the most important theatrical
city in England outside of the capital."
Canadian Beulah Maude Durrant’s brother Theodore: “The Demon
of the Belfry”, was charged with the murders of 2 women in San-
Francisco in 1895 & was executed in 1898. As a result Maude
changed her name to Maude Allan.
In 1900 she published an illustrated sex manual for women &
began to dance professionally. Inspired by ‘Salomé’ (by Oscar
Wilde) & the emerging ‘aesthetic’ dance movement, she created
‘Vision of Salomé’. Its first production was in Vienna in 1906 but
her career took off in Berlin & Munich. She also posed for the
symbolist painter Franz von Stuck as Salome in 1906. Her ‘Dance
of the 7 Veils’ was controversial. She promoted her career by
publishing her autobiography, ‘My Life & Dancing’ (1908), the year
she took her production of ‘Vision of Salomé’ to England

In Feb 1918 (the same month as Billing’s Vigilante
article), at the age of 44 & her career in the doldrums,
Maude was commissioned to perform 2 private
performances of Salomé in London (the Lord
Chancellor had deemed it blasphemous & banned
public performances). Only a few months before,
another celebrated free dancer, Marta Hari, who had
also used the Salomé myth, had been shot by the
French on trumped-up charges of spying for the
Germans. Billing heard rumours of Allan’s lesbianism
(true) & that she was having an affair with Margot, the
wife of former P.M. Asquith (false). On 16 Feb, 1918,
the front page of Vigilante featured Harold S
Spencer’s article: "The Cult of the Clitoris“
proclaiming the lesbian ‘affair’ & accusing Margot &
Herbert Asquith and Allan of being members of the
‘Unseen Hand’ & at the centre of a German-funded
conspiracy to enlist the wives of powerful men into
this cult.
‘Cult of the Clitoris’ and The ‘Trial of the Century’
Harold Spencer
[right] with Noel
Billing [left] @ an
election meeting in
1918

Lord Alfred Douglas
Allan sued for libel. P.M Lloyd George hired Eileen Villiers-Stewart (former mistress of
Asquith’s Chief Whip) as an agent-provocateur to lure Billing to a male brothel to be
photographed for blackmail. However she told him of the plot & committed perjury during
the Old Bailey trial testifying for Billing. He ensured the public gallery was packed with
wounded soldiers to remind his audience of the sacrifices made by British youth.
Villiers-Stewart lied that she had seen the Black Book & the names in it. She accused the
presiding judge Chief Justice Charles Darling of being included. Witness Harold Spencer
claimed that Alice Keppel (mistress of Edward VII) was in the Black Book & a member of the
Unseen Hand, visiting Holland as a go-between in covert peace talks with Germany.
Billing noted that homosexuality was a foreign & specifically ‘German’ vice, highlighting the
pre-war Eulenberg affair and the contemporary writing of German sexologist Richard von
Kraft Ebing. Oscar Wilde was denounced as ‘Irish’, ergo foreign.
Alfred Douglas (Wilde’s erstwhile lover ‘Bosie’), gave evidence for the defence & used the
trial to attack Wilde’s legacy: “I think [Wilde] had a diabolical influence on everyone he met. I
think he is the greatest force of evil that has appeared in Europe in the last 350 years.”
The ‘trial of the century’ was a sensation, extensively covered in Lord Northcliffe’s Times, Daily
Mail and London Evening News & devoured by the public. On 4th June, 1918, Billing was
acquitted of all charges to much public jubilation. Allen’s career was ruined and she returned to
the USA.

Johann Musäus‘s 18thc description of Germany as the ‚Volk der Dichter und Denker (poets & thinkers) had
been parodied by the Austrian satirist Karl Kraus as ‘Die Deutschen – das Volk der Richter und Henker’
(The Germans: the nation of Judges and Executioners). The trope of ‚cultural‘ Germany was targeted
extensively by cartoonists & satirists. The reputation of Germany and the Germans was in ruins.

Germany made its last reparations payment for World War I on Oct. 3, 2010 settling its debt from the 1919
Versailles Treaty 92 years after the country's defeat. The reparations bankrupted Germany in the 1920s and
the fledgling Nazi party seized on the resulting public resentment against the terms of the Versailles Treaty.
The sum was initially set at 269 billion gold marks, around 96,000 tons of gold, before being reduced to 112
billion gold marks by 1929, payable over a period of 59 years. Germany suspended annual payments in
1931 during the global financial crisis and Hitler declined to resume them when he came to power in 1933.
In 1953, W.Germany agreed to service its international bond obligations. After the Berlin Wall fell and West
and East Germany united in 1990, the country paid the interest off in annual instalments, the last of which
became due on Oct. 3 2010.
BRITAIN. The government paid the outstanding £1.9bn of debt from a 3.5% War Loan on 9 March 2015
including £218m of debts from World War One. More than 120,000 investors hold War Loan bonds issued
by then Chancellor Neville Chamberlain in 1932, the War Loan was used to refinance government debt
accumulated during World War One. It replaced an earlier bond which paid 5% to investors.It is the first
time the government has paid off a bond of this kind in 67 years. The Debt Management Office estimates
the government has paid about £5.5bn in total interest on the 5% and 3.5% war loans respectively since
1917. In 1931, President Herbert Hoover announced a one-year moratorium on war loan repayments from
all nations, due to the global economic crisis, but by 1934 Britain still owed the US $4.4bn of World War I
debt (about £866m at 1934 exchange rates).
WW1 REPARATION PAYMENTS/LOANS – THE LONG SHADOW

Benita Hume
Noel Billing’s 1927 play High Treason was filmed in 1929 (subtitled "The Peace Picture"), One of the first
British talkies & designed to be shown both with and without sound. It is set sometime after 1939, and
features proto-fascist uniforms, futuristic London cityscapes, & strange Billing-type aircraft. It narrates
the outbreak of a 2nd World War in the 1940s between Europe and America orchestrated by a sinister
cabal of arms dealers who find global peace cutting into their profits.

In 1933, Humbert Wolfe, the Bradford poet continued the use of the much-loved
Struwelpeter format to publish a virulent attack on the emerging regime in Germany
under the pseudonym Oistros. Its visuals & format closely follow the German tradition
of Wilhelm Busch & Heinrich Hoffman’ children’s books.
The 'Truffle Eater. Pretty
Stories and Funny Pictures'
was published in 1933, the year
Adolf Hitler became Chancellor.
It is the earliest anti-Hitler comic
book of its kind to ridicule the
German dictator. It was vicious
& prescient. The book details
events of 1933, incl. the
Reichstag burning in February,
book-burnings & increasing anti-
Semitic activities in Germany.
Wolfe/’Oistros’ refers back to
Kaiser Wilhelm II and predicts (6
years before WWII) that Europe
will suffer a similar fate under
Germany ruled by Hitler: i.e. war
& destruction.When the children have been good/By which of course it is understood/Nazi at
meal times, Nazi at play/Nazi night & Nazi day/They shall have the pretty
things/Revolution always brings/But those other girls and boys/Hardly
Germans, rarely Goys/Such as cannot sing ‘Horst Wessel’/And are therefore
more or less ill/They and theirs shall never look/At this pretty picture book.

[Above]: Baby. Baby Goering/Mother’s simply purring
/Father’s gone to shoot a Yid/To make a supper for his kid.
[Below right]: He takes the torch, and in the name/ of culture
he commits to flame / What all except the Huns and vulture/
Believe to be the seed of culture

Songwriter: Noël Peirce Coward, 1943
Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans
Written in 1943, the song was a favourite of
Winston Churchill. After the war, Coward
explained that he had written it,
"as a satire directed against a small
minority of excessive humanitarians, who,
in my opinion, were taking a rather too
tolerant view of our enemies".
Some people didn't realize that at the time,
& thought it was pro-German; he received
abusive letters. The BBC & ‘His Master's
Voice’ flew into a panic. The latter
suppressed it for 3 months; the BBC
banned it, although it was played once, &
Coward became the first person to use the
word "bloody" over the air.
Don't let's be beastly to the Germans/when our victory is ultimately won,
It was just those nasty Nazis who persuaded them to fight/And their Beethoven and Bach/are
really far worse than their bite/Let's be meek to them-/And turn the other cheek to them/And try
to bring out their latent sense of fun/Let's give them full air parity/And treat the rats with
charity/But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.
We must be just/And win their love and trust/And in addition we must/Be wise
And ask the conquered lands to join our hands to aid them.
That would be a wonderful surprise/For many years/They've been in floods of tears/Because the
poor little dears/Have been so wronged and only longed/To cheat the world/Deplete the
world/And beat/The world to blazes.
This is the moment when we ought to sing their praises.
Don't let's be beastly to the Germans/When we've definitely got them on the run/Let us treat
them very kindly as we would a valued friend/We might send them out some Bishops as a form
of lease and lend/Let's be sweet to them/And day by day repeat to them/That 'sterilization'
simply isn't done/Let's help the dirty swine again/To occupy the Rhine again/But don't let's be
beastly to the Hun.
Don't let's be beastly to the Germans/When the age of peace and plenty has begun.
We must send them steel and oil and coal and everything they need/For their peaceable
intentions can be always guaranteed./Let's employ with them a sort of 'strength through joy'
with them/They're better than us at honest manly fun.
Let's let them feel they're swell again and bomb us all to hell again/But don't let's be beastly to
the Hun.
Don't let's be beastly to the Germans/For you can't deprive a gangster of his gun
Though they've been a little naughty to the Czechs and Poles and Dutch
But I don't suppose those countries really minded very much
Let's be free with them and share the B.B.C. with them/We mustn't prevent them basking in the
sun/Let's soften their defeat again-and build their bloody fleet again,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

‘The Luftwaffe never managed it during
the Second World War thanks to the
heroism of The Few. Now, seven decades
on, Germany is once again plotting to
take control of the skies over Britain… by
the altogether more peaceful means of
buying our air traffic control service.’
Daily Mail, 2011
Daily Mirror,24.6.96 .Pearce &
Gascoigne with tin helmets
Express, 2009
Michael Ballack in a ‘Nazi’ shirt, Daily Star, 2010
In Germany, the broadsheet Süddeutsche Zeitung declared that the
Sun and other tabloids are "read by people who don't give a toss
about who runs the country, as long as she has big breasts.“ (1996)

Ca. 300,000 Germans currently
live in Britain. For the 1st time
since WW11 there are more
Germans (double the number) in
Britain than Brits in Germany,.
German tourists spend almost
twice as much time in the UK as
vice versa.
There are four or five times as
many German students studying
in British universities than the
other way round.
Georg Boomgaarden, former
German envoy to London, noted
the lack of German being taught
in schools (fewer than 5000
students sat German A-Levels this
summer). Entries have halved
over the past decade & the
subject could be ‘heading for
extinction’. Boomgaarden
regretted that Germans and the
Brits are both ignorant of their
shared common history.
‘Culture is nourishment; it opens our eyes to how other people live, feel,
think and behave. In this increasingly fractured world, communication is
everything. We are so fortunate to have the riches of European culture at
our disposal and it is troubling that our young people should detach
from them in such depressing numbers. We need, more than ever,
people who read Zweig or Kafka, people who can go abroad and talk. We
are witnessing the gaslighting of European culture, and it’s a tragedy.’
(Knight, 2018)
Der Spiegel: ‘How Europeans regard the Germans / The German
predominance’

Recommended: ‘EASY GERMAN’ SITE: https://www.youtube.com/easygerman

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