← Back to the front page

40 Historical Markers on the Road to Prohibition

Khalid Elhassan December 2, 2019 31 min

Black and white - Monochrome — 19th century Brewery. Pintrest

8. Harnessing Wartime Anti-German Passions to the Cause of Prohibition

german beer gettyimages 106499323 — Anti-German sentiment during WWI turned people against German brewers, helping lead to Prohibition. WTTW

America’s entry into WWI was accompanied by a wave of anti-German hysteria. Nine decades before French fries became freedom fries, sauerkraut was renamed liberty cabbage. German books were burned in public. Cincinnati’s Berlin Street was renamed Woodrow Street, in homage to the president. Playing Beethoven was banned in Boston. Iowa’s governor declared that speaking German in public or over the telephone was illegal. Red Cross leaders (falsely) claimed that German-Americans had penetrated their organization, and were putting ground glass in bandages intended for American soldiers.

Prohibition advocates did not hesitate to take advantage of the aroused passions. As one pro-prohibition politician told journalists: “We have German enemies across the water. We have German enemies in this country too. And the worst of all our German enemies, the most treacherous, the most menacing, are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.