Did Americans volunteer with Central Powers?

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astrotraveler
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Did Americans volunteer with Central Powers?

#1

Post by astrotraveler » 18 Nov 2017, 17:24

We have many stories of Americans volunteering for service with France and Britain in WW1 particularly before the US declaration of war in April 1917. I have been unable to find any records of Americans volunteering for service with the Central Powers. I'd be particularly interested if anyone can direct me to any Americans from North Carolina who volunteered with the German Army. Thank you.

Dave Danner
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Re: Did Americans volunteer with Central Powers?

#2

Post by Dave Danner » 22 Nov 2017, 18:53

If you enter various cities and states in the "Ort" field in the database of World War I [url=http://des.genealogy.net/eingabe-verlus ... arch/index]German casualty lists[/irl], you will find hundreds of American-born names among those killed, missing, or wounded. "New York" alone gives 595 entries (not 595 different people, since some were wounded more than once, and sometimes there were corrections to earlier entries).

Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if someone was merely born in the US, but returned to Germany before the war, or if they volunteered after 1914. For example, there is a 26 October 1916 entry in the casualty lists for Infanterist Karl Rollmann, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. But the Kriegsstammrolle of the Bavarian Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 4 lists his occupation and place of residence as a Bauer in Pflaumheim, Unterfranken. So his family likely returned to Germany before the war.

The casualty lists also would not account for German-born immigrants to the United States who simply returned to their homeland. I have seen a Militärpaß for someone who did his initial military service in the early 1900s and was exempted from annual reserve exercises because he was living in the United States, but was called to active duty in 1914 or 1915. I can't remember where I saw it, though.

Many German-Americans were sympathetic to their homeland, though most were loyal to their new country. Many Jewish Americans were also sympathetic to the Central Powers, not out of any love for Germany or Austria-Hungary, but because they were fighting the Russian Empire, considered at the time to be among the most reactionary and anti-Semitic places in Europe. But this was generally nowhere near the sympathy that Americans had for Belgium and France.

The German-language press in the United States would probably be a good resource, but I do not know of any online databases of these papers for the time period.

Regarding North Carolina specifically, at the time the state would not have had a very large German-American population. Most German-Americans, especially more recent immigrants with closer ties to their homeland, lived in the Mid-Atlantic states (NY, NJ, PA, MD) or the Midwest. My father's family arrived from Baden in Baltimore in 1864 and settled in Ohio, for example.


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Sheldrake
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Re: Did Americans volunteer with Central Powers?

#3

Post by Sheldrake » 22 Nov 2017, 23:41

As now there were many Central Europeans working in the UK. Most of the Germans returned to Germany in 1914 to fight for the Kaiser. It was such a common matter that there was a joke that if you wanted to kill a German you just shouted "waiter!" and shot the figure ho popped up with "here!" One of the Germans in the Christmas Truce asked if the Brit he was talking to would pass a message to his girlfriend...

Felix C
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Re: Did Americans volunteer with Central Powers?

#4

Post by Felix C » 28 Nov 2017, 21:34

There was the case of the S.S. Matopo. Closest I can find.Clarence Reginald Hodson Alias Ernest Schiller.

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