German Canadians

Canadians of German ethnicity

File:Commons.jpg John Diefenbaker · Ralph Klein · Randy Bachman · Feist · Tricia Helfer · Cindy Klassen · Justin Bieber
Regions with significant populations
Ontario, Western Canada, Atlantic Canada, Quebec
Languages
German, English and/or French
Religion
Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Mennonite, Hutterite
Related ethnic groups
German, German Americans

A German-Canadian anti-Nazi rally in Montreal in April 1939

German Canadians (German: Deutsch-Kanadier or [Deutschkanadier] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) are Canadians of ethnic German ancestry. The 2006 Canadian census put the number of Canadians of German ethnicity at 3,179,425. Only a small fraction of German Canadians are descendants of immigrants from what is today Germany. Far more have come from German populations in Eastern Europe and Russia with significant number of Germans coming from Switzerland and the Low Countries; some have also come from Austria. Another large group was those of German descent who came to Canada after spending a significant amount of time in the United States.

History

A small number of Germans came to New France and mixed with the French-Canadians. However, the first major round of German immigration to Canada began after the British conquest of Nova Scotia. Many Germans had served in the British army and elected to settle in the new lands. Far more arrived as some of the Foreign Protestants. These were continental Protestants encouraged to come to Nova Scotia to counter balance the large number of Catholic Acadians. This influx began in about 1751 and to this day the South Shore of Nova Scotia is filled with German town names, surnames, and Lutheran churches.

The American Revolution saw an even larger group of German migrants to Canada. Those of German descent made up a significant percentage of United Empire Loyalists. To defeat the revolution, and later to defend British North America from it, the British used large numbers of German mercenaries. Many of them chose to settle in Canada once their terms of service expired. Several German mercenaries from the Brunswick regiment settled in Quebec, southwest of Montreal and south of Quebec City.

The largest group fleeing the United States were the Mennonites whose pacifism was discriminated against in the new United States. They moved to what is today southwest Ontario, settling around Berlin, Ontario (now known as Kitchener and Waterloo). This large group also attracted new migrants from Germany drawing some 50,000 of them to the region over the next decades.

19th century

The German Protestants developed the Lutheran Church along Canadian lines. In Waterloo County, Ontario, with large German elements that arrived after 1850, the Lutheran churches played major roles in the religious, cutural and social life of the community. After 1914 English became the preferred language for sermons and publications. Absent a seminary, the churches trained their own ministers, but there was a doctrinal schism in the 1860s. While the Anglophone Protestants promoted the Social Gospel and prohibition, the Lutherans stood apart.

20th century

The population of the Canadian west beginning in 1896 drew further large numbers of German immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe. Once again Mennonites were especially prominent being persecuted by the Tsarist regime in Russia. The farmers, used to the harsh conditions of farming in Russia, were some of the most successful in adapting to the Canadian prairies. This accelerated when, in the 1920s, the United States imposed quotas on Eastern European immigration. Soon after Canada imposed its own limits, however, and prevented most of those trying to flee the Third Reich from moving to Canada. Many of the Mennonites settled in the Winnipeg and Steinbach, Manitoba, and the area just north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

In the years since the Second World War there have been about 400,000 German speaking immigrants.

While Germans are one of the largest constituent ethnic groups in Canada, they are considerably less visible than others. In part this is because the great waves of German immigration were many decades ago and since then Germans have been largely assimilated. Culturally, linguistically, and physically, there is far less to distinguish Germans from the Anglo-French majority compared to other immigrant groups. Also important is that during both the world wars the Germans were regarded as enemies. Many Canadians attempted to hide their German ancestry, some ceasing to speak German, and some even changing their surnames. Some German place names were renamed, such as that of Berlin to Kitchener, Ontario.

Geography

People who have self-identified as having German ancestors are the plurality in many parts of the Prairie provinces (areas coloured in yellow).

The 5 areas in Canada where they mostly live are Toronto: 220,135, Vancouver: 187,410, Winnipeg: 109,355, Kitchener: 93,325, and Montreal: 83,850.

Ethnic Bloc Settlements In The Prairies

There are several German ethnic block settlements in western Canada. Close to half of people in Saskatchewan are German-Canadians. German bloc settlements include the areas around Strasbourg, Bulyea, Leader, Burstall, Fox Valley, Eatonia, St. Walburg, Paradise Hill, Loon Lake, Goodsoil, Pierceland, Meadow Lake, Edenwold, Windthorst, Lemberg, Neudorf, Grayson, Langenburg, Kerrobert, Unity, Luseland, Macklin, Humboldt, Watson, Cudworth, Lampman, Midale, Tribune, Consul, Rockglen, and Shaunavon.

Saskatchewan

In Saskatchewan the Germans settlers came directly from Russia, or, after 1914 from the Dakotas. They came not as large groups but as part of a chain of family members, where the first immigrants would find suitable locations and send for the others. They formed compact German-speaking communities built around their Catholic or Lutheran churches, and continuing old-world customs. They were farmers who grew wheat and sugar beets. Arrivals from Russia, Bukovina, and Romanian Dobruja established their villages in a 40-mile-wide tract east of Regina. The Germans operated parochial schools primarily to maintain their religious faith; often they offered only an hour of German language instruction a week, but they always had extensive coverage of religion. Most German Catholic children by 1910 attended schools taught entirely in English. In the 1900-1930 era, German Catholics generally voted for the Liberal ticket (rather than the Provincial Rights and Conservative tickets), seeing Liberals as more willing to protect religious minorities. Occasionally they voted for Conservatives or independent candidates who offered greater support for public funding of parochial schools. Nazi Germany made a systematic effort to proselytize among Saskatchewan's Germans in the 1930s. Fewer that 1% endorsed their message, but some did migrate back to Germany before anti-Nazi sentiment became overwhelming in 1939.

Prominent German-Canadians

• Rosalie Abella, current Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
• Randy Bachman, rock musician
• Claus Wagner Bartak, space engineer
• Bobby Bauer, hockey player
• William Moll-Berczy, co-founded the city of York, now Toronto, in 1794
• Justin Bieber, singer, songwriter
• Matt Brouwer, Christian/Gospel musician
• Sarah Chalke, actress
• Gary Doer, current Ambassador to the United States and former Premier of Manitoba
• John Diefenbaker, Prime Minister
• Woody Dumart, hockey player
• Feist, singer-songwriter
• Dany Heatley, hockey player
• Gerhard Herzberg, scientist
• John Kay, musician
• Craig Kielburger, humanitarian
• Taylor Kitsch, actor
• Cindy Klassen, sportswoman
• Ralph Klein, former Progressive Conservative Premier of Alberta
• Cornelius Krieghoff, artist
• Kathryn Dawn Lang, singer-songwriter
• Silken Laumann, sportswoman
• Jack Layton, former leader of the official opposition
• Almuth Lütkenhaus, sculptor
• Howie Morenz, hockey player
• Scott Niedermayer, hockey player
• Rob Niedermayer, hockey player
• John Polanyi, Nobel Laureate
• Valerie Poxleitner (known as Lights), singer, songwriter
• Friedrich Adolf Riedesel, General and commander of the German troops in North America
• Peter Rindisbacher, artist
• Milt Schmidt, hockey player
• Earl Seibert, hockey player
• Miriam Toews, Governor General's Award-winning writer
• Vic Toews, politician
• John Vernon, actor
• Augustus Stephen Vogt, composer and author
• Eberhard Zeidler, architect

In sports

In the early 1980s, German ice hockey started a recruitment drive in Canada, aimed at Canadian ice hockey players of German ancestry. The term Deutsch-Kanadier became synonymous in Germany with those players. Their contribution added largely to the improvement of the sport and the national team in Germany. Critics however also blame those players for a reduction in the number of German born players to play at elite level. Some of them, like Harold Kreis, remain closely associated with the sport in Germany. The most well known of those were:

• Harold Kreis
• Roy Roedger
• Manfred Wolf
• Karl Friesen
• Peter Ascherl

See also

• Germans
• Ethnic German
• German American
• German Brazilian
• German Argentine
• German inventors and discoverers
• German Mills, Ontario

Further reading

• Heinz Antor (2003) Refractions of Germany in Canadian literature and culture Walter de Gruyter
• Jonathan Wagner, A History of Migration from Germany to Canada 1850-1939 (UBC Press, 2006)

External links

• University of Alberta's History of Germans in Alberta
• Multicultural Canada website including German books and periodicals and digitized issues of the Berliner Journal, 1880-1916
• History of Ours: the German People A history of Germans in Brantford, Ontario.
• German Canadian Congress