German-Americans have long possessed a unique relationship with the United States. While millions of Germans have emigrated to America over the last three centuries, from the beginning they were viewed by native-born Americans as “others,” just as pretty much every new immigrant group to America is viewed. But even as late as the 19th and early 20th centuries, German language newspapers flourished in cities such as St. Louis. German immigrants’ “strange” new habits, such as drinking in beer gardens, along with their new beer brewing techniques, including lagering, which Adam Lemp famously brought to St. Louis, upset the status quo in St. Louis culture.
Not helping the situation, German-Americans’ loyalties often lay with nations and interests opposed by the more established political and business dynasties in St. Louis. The first rumblings of German-nativist tension boiled over during the Civil War, when newly arrived German immigrants joined the Union war effort, thereby effectively robbing the Confederacy of the possibility of capturing St. Louis. Prussia’s, and then Germany’s, longstanding rivalry with France rankled French Americans in St. Louis, particularly after the former’s victory against the latter in the 1870-1 Franco-Prussian War—coincidentally occurring at the same time as Lemp and Anheuser-Busch were expanding rapidly, recording record profits and production. Likewise, in the decades following the war with France, the German Empire was now sparring with Great Britain for control of Africa and the waters around Europe.
Also see: The Last Lemp
On top of all of that, the Temperance Movement was aiming its guns at German-American brewers. While whiskey was still the primary target of the looming Prohibition, brewers such as William J. Lemp Sr. and Adolphus Busch sought to market beer as a safe, “family-friendly” drink consumed by parents at dinner with their children (hence the Bevo Mill and other Anheuser-Busch company restaurants). In fact, brewers even went so far as to claim that beer was not intoxicating. And more importantly, the brewing families expected all members of their clan to help out the anti-Prohibition movement. Annie Lemp Konta, who was the daughter of William J. Lemp Sr., utilized her education and intelligence to argue against Prohibition and defend the German Empire, authoring A Plea for Moderation: Based Upon Observations of an American Woman in a Belligerent Country.
Published in 1915 by The Fatherland Corporation, as the First World War was further sliding into a stalemate on the Western Front, Konta’s book sought the twin task of defending the German emperor, William II (using his English name, not the more foreign-sounding original German Wilhelm), while also arguing against Prohibition. A wonderful print of the German emperor, minus any of his more dated uniforms or parade dress, accompanies the title page.
Speaking in the often-stilted formal language of polite society in the years around 1915, Konta opens with a call for empathy towards the German-American population. Of course, war with Germany was still approximately two years off, but due to the strong historic ties America held with Great Britain and France at this point, public sympathy was much more against the German Empire.
The Lemp heiress then proceeds to issue an apologia concerning the German Empire’s illegal invasion of Belgium, and the shocking bombardment of Reims Cathedral in France. First off, Konta makes the rather flimsy excuse that the treaty the North German Confederation signed (including Prussia, the core state of the Confederation), which guaranteed Belgian neutrality in 1839 until 1872, was not valid since that German predecessor signatory had dissolved in order to form the German Empire (which of course, also included Prussia as its core state). Furthermore, the British are always up to their own tricks, she explains. Salvation of the nation, likewise, allowed for the morality of invading another country to reach the real enemy, France. And besides, supposedly France had considered the invasion of Switzerland, as well.
Also see: A look at the treatise Louis Lemp wrote when he was a young brewing student
Konta then proceeds to discuss the cleanliness of German cities, still maintaining their orderliness despite the chaos occurring throughout other parts of Europe. She also took the time to visit several military hospitals, where she repeats wounded soldiers’ claims of French brutality on the Western Front. Likewise, she then proceeds to defend the German bombardment of Reims by explaining that the army gave plenty of warning ahead of time. Unfortunately, Reims Cathedral was not able to abscond to safety before German artillery rained shells down on it. But, Konta expresses disbelief that Europeans, as civilized a people they are, would have intentionally caused such wanton destruction. All Europeans love art, she insists, of course.
Nevertheless, despite some questionable logic early on, Konta proceeds to demonstrate an interesting, though slightly nationalistic understanding of European history. Waxing deep into German history, back to the Migration Period, she explains the German Empire’s claims to the contested province of Alsace-Lorraine, which was a territorial concession from France to the new German Empire in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War. Instead, she claims that the province historically belongs to Germany, dating back to the time of Charlemagne and the subsequent Holy Roman Empire. Konta argues that it was Louis XIV, whose palace of Versailles was the location of the founding of the German Empire as France lay in humiliating defeat in 1871, who had “robbed” the territory of its German inhabitants.
Konta concludes her apologia with a biographical sketch of William II. She describes him as the most democratic of rulers in the world, whose deft dealings with the Social Democrats, a still extant German political party, resulted in a near utopian society. This august emperor does not allow the existence of a single slum in all of the German empire, according to his Lemp family biographer. Likewise, not a single person goes without food in all of lands ruled by such an enlightened ruler. He lives a solid, Protestant life of simplicity, inhabiting extremely humble palaces (apparently, she had never heard of Hohenzollern Castle, Sanssouci or the Berlin City Palace—all extremely large, extravagant royal dwellings), and far from Fifth Avenue or Russian Imperial decadence.
Also see: Take a look inside a Lemp Brewery Souvenir Book, circa the 1893 Columbian Exposition
Hindsight is certainly greater than foresight, and some of the claims Konta makes might seem absurd over 100 years after the fact. What is fascinating about this short book is the window it provides into the German-American worldview as Europe was engulfed in war. Prohibition certainly benefited from alcohol’s association with the German brewing industry, and the demonization of honest, legitimate business in the years after the war remains a stain on this country’s legacy. And considering that her loved ones’ lives and business would be destroyed by Prohibition, Konta’s work to save the Lemp Brewery also shows just how much she cared for her brothers and sisters. That certainly counts for something.
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via email at [email protected].
