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Newsletter of the Max Kade CenterEditor: Frank Baron; e-mail: fbaron@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures; The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045Telephone: (785) 864-4803; Fax: (785) 864-4298

MAX KADE CENTER

FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN

STUDIES

MARCH 1998

and Munich. He completed his doc-toral work at the University of Munichin 1971. For shorter periods he hasalso taught at the universities ofMunich, Aarhus (Denmark), Nizza(France), and Aix-Marseille (France).He has published monographs onFriedrich Schiller, Georg ChristophLichtenberg, and Thomas Mann. Hehas written numerous articles on Ger-man literature from the period of theEnlightenment until the present. Hisspecial research interests areGottfried Keller and exile literature.Professor Sautermeister has beenactive as an editor: With Jochen Vogt

he has published almost twenty vol-umes of the UTB-series Text undGeschichte: Modellinterp-retationen zur deutschen Literatur;with Jäger he has edited the NeueBremer Beiträge; and with Grathoffand OesterleKulturwissenschaftliche Studien zurDeutschen Literatur. Together withChristine Sautermeister, his wife, hehas translated a work of the Frenchauthor Louis-Ferdinand Celine intoGerman. At the present time Profes-sor Sautermeister is preparing amonograph on Gottfried Keller,whose works he edited in the seriesGoldmann Klassiker.

Gert Sautermeister of the Uni-versity of Bremen, Max Kade distin-guished visiting professor, will delivera lecture on “Germanistik und ‘Cul-tural Studies’” on Tuesday, March 17,at 7:30 p. m. at the Max Kade Cen-ter. The University of Bremen, whereProfessor Sauter-meister has taughtsince 1974, was one of the first Ger-man universities to take practicalmeasures to integrate interdisciplinarycourses into its curriculum. Profes-sor Sautermeister is a native of Ulm.He studied German and Romancelanguages and literatures at the uni-versities of Tübingen, Vienna, Paris,

A German Perspective on Cultural Studies

KU Graduate students of German hold successful conference.

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Graduate Student ColloquiumFebruary 20-22, 1998

Open Topic IRespondent: Prof. Gert Sautermeister

Maike Ahrends (Michigan) “Kulturelle Hybridität,Köpfe und Tücher in Aysel Özakins Glaube, Liebe,Aircondition”Marike Janzen (University of Texas-Austin) “AnExile’s Exotic Heimat in Paul Zech’s Die Rubia und

ihr Flügelspieler”

Open Topic IIRespondents: Prof. WilliamKeel, Prof. Frank Baron,Prof. Horst Wenzel

Donovan Anderson(Michigan) “Testing theBorders of Germanistik:German Studies andWissenschaftsgeschichte”Paul Gebhardt (Universityof Kansas) “The Horror ofthe Unapplied Power:Nietzsche’s Geburt derTragödie Transformed inRilke’s Early Poetry”Mark Nesbitt Daly(University of Kansas)“The Portrayal of Kingshipand Peace in Ulrich’sLanzelet”

Dinner (Adams Alumni Center -Paul Adams Room)Keynote Speaker: Prof. HorstWenzel “wilde unde zam: Zurunhöfischen Wahrnehmung vonKörpern und Büchern”

Sunday, Feb. 22

Panel: Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in VenedigRespondent: Prof. Gert Sautermeister

Rose Jones (University of Kansas) “A Blue Review:D. H. Lawrence’s Review of Thomas Mann’s DerTod in Venedig”Glenn Hudspeth (University of Kansas) “Thoughtand Feeling: A Deadly Dichotomy in ThomasMann's Der Tod in Venedig”Courtney Peltzer (University of Kansas) “ThomasMann’s Venice: The City as Seductress”

Friday, Feb. 20

Welcoming Reception (Max Kade Center)Introductory Remarks by Thyra KnappPanel: DysfunctionalismRespondent: Elke Lorenz Champion

Lisa Mays (University ofKansas)“‘Die einseitige Liebe’: Astudy of Ferdinand vonSaar’s Female Charactersin Die Troglodytin and DieGeigerin”David Prickett (Univer-sity of Cincinnati) “‘Likea Stone Thrown intoWater’: The Testimony ofMagnus Hirschfeld”Reception (at the home ofElke Lorenz Champion)

Saturday, Feb. 21

Panel: Wilde Frauen IRespondent: Prof. Leonie

MarxChristiane Kuechler(Northwestern University)“Where the Wild WomenDwell - The Orient as aSpace for ExtraordinaryWomen in Wolfram vonEschenbach’s Parzival andAdolf Muschg’s Parzival -der Rote Ritter”Stephanie Libbon (OhioState) “The Search for Selfin Kleist’s Penthesilea”

Panel: Wilde Frauen IIRespondent: Prof. Leonie Marx

Enno Lohmeyer (University of Kansas) “‘Zahmeund Wilde Frauen’: Gedanken zu Marie von Ebner-Eschenbachs Er laßt die Hand küssen”Cary Einberger (Michigan State) “Was geschah,nachdem (und bevor) Jelinek dieses Stückgeschrieben hatte”

Courtney Pettzer illustrates Mann’s images of Venice.

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treated the merits of underrated au-thors and the significance of ignoredconnections of literary history. Oth-ers (Stephanie Libbon, CaryEinberger, Rose Jones, Glenn

Hudspeth, and Courtney Peltzer)brought to light new perspectives onthe works of prominent authors.”

“The level of this meeting’s ex-cellence compares favorably to thatof high-level conferences in our pro-fession. The KU organizers (ThyraKnapp, Mark Nesbitt-Daly, RoseJones, and Paul Gebhardt) weresuccessful in creating a relaxed andfriendly atmosphere. They workedwith precision and care to provide all

the prerequisites for ideal scholarlywork and communication. For me,as a guest from Germany, these threedays were a valuable and pleasant ex-perience. I am indebted to the gradu-

ate students for their seriouscommitment in making thisevent possible and to the Ger-man Department facultymembers who enthusiasti-cally supported them in theirefforts.”

Professor HorstWenzel of the HumboldtUniversity of Berlin gave thekeynote address. He alsoparticipated actively in thediscussions. At the conclu-sion of the conference hesaid that he was “impressedby the high standardsachieved in the contributionsand especially by the naturalconfidence with which theywere presented. I see thevalue of the unique collo-quium in the combination ofstudy, research, and teaching,the quality of the work shown,and the commitment and thedemocratic involvement of allstudents in every aspect oforganizational questions.

This kind of conference helps to pre-pare students early and more com-prehensively for later professionalwork, an opportunity not presentlyavailable to doctoral students in Ger-many.”

Professors Sautermeister andWenzel believe that the students’ ini-tiatives deserve strong support, andthey would welcome the participationof experienced students and doctoralcandidates from German universitiesin future KU conferences.

Graduate Student Con-ference Impresses Eu-

ropean GuestsSponsored by the KU Graduate

Association of GermanStudents, the SecondAnnual Colloquium tookplace Feb. 20-22 at theMax Kade Center forGerman-American Stud-ies (Sudler House). Fif-teen scholarly presenta-tions covered a widerange of topics: literarycriticism, literary history,social and political issues,exile studies, feminism,and the analysis of indi-vidual works of Germanliterature. Participantsincluded visitors from theuniversities of Cincinnati,Texas, Michigan, Michi-gan State, Northwesternand Ohio State. The col-loquium acquired an in-ternational dimensionthrough the active partici-pation of Europeanguests.

Gert Sautermeis-ter, Max Kade distin-guished visiting professor of Germanfrom the University of Bremen, par-ticipated in the discussions. He ob-served afterwards that “the qualityand range of the colloquium made astrong impression on all participantsfor a variety of reasons. There werelectures (by David Prickett, MaikeAhrends, Marike Janzen) that re-ported the discovery of unknownworks. Others (Lisa Mays, EnnoLohmeyer, Mark Nesbitt-Daly,Christiane Kuechler, DonovanAnderson, and Paul Gebhardt)

Rose Jones compares works of Thomas Mann andD. H. Lawrence.

! ! !

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Documenting German Settlement Dialects in KansasThe culture and language of hun-

dreds of immigrant communities havelong been part of the richness of theAmerican scene. Kansans have beenthe beneficiaries of the contributionsof their Czech, Swedish, French, andespecially German neighbors. Now,as the immigrant languages of thesepeople face almost certain extinction,we are beginning to realize the truevalue of these languages, just as wehave begun to realize the value of themany endangered species of plantsand animals to our culture and envi-ronment. Less than one hundredyears ago German dialects were spo-ken in almost every county in Kan-sas. In many counties several differ-ent dialects could be heard. Continu-ing in the tradition of KU professorsWilliam Herbert Carruth and J. NealeCarman, one of the projects of theMax Kade Center has the purpose ofdocumenting and analyzing as well aspreserving on tape the remaining Ger-man dialects in Kansas.

Germans played a major role inthe settlement of this region from theearliest settlements in northeasternKansas in the late 1850s until thesettlement of the western counties ofKansas at the end of the nineteenthcentury. Germans and German-speaking immigrants, especially fromthe Russian and Austrian empires inEastern Europe, continued to settle inrural areas of Kansas well into thetwentieth century. Even today at theend of the twentieth century, newimmigration of German-speakingMennonites from Mexico is occurringin southwestern Kansas.

While large numbers of Germanssettled in northeast Kansas, includingextensive rural communities inWaubunsee, Nemaha, Marshall, andWashington counties, their impact wasovershadowed by the large migrationto Kansas of Germans from Russiafollowing the completion of the twomajor rail lines through Kansas in1872. Beginning in 1874, large num-bers of German Mennonites from

South Russia settled on land pur-chased from the Santa Fe Railroad inMarion, McPherson, Harvey, andReno counties. In 1875, GermanCatholic and Protestant settlers fromthe Volga region began arriving. In-stead of settling along the Santa Feas was planned, these groups choseto begin homesteading farther west,along the Kansas Pacific Railroad inEllis and Russell counties. By the endof the 1870s some 12,000 Germansfrom Russia had found new homes inKansas (see Norman E. Saul, “TheMigration of the Russian-Germans toKansas,” The Kansas HistoricalQuarterly 40 [1974]: 38-62).

The use of German and/or Ger-man dialects by these immigrants inKansas has been thoroughly docu-mented by J. Neale Carman (ForeignLanguage Units of Kansas, vol. 1[Lawrence: University of KansasPress, 1962]). In over thirty years ofpersonal investigation and countlesstrips throughout the state, Carmancompiled an exhaustive collection ofdata relating to foreign-language usein Kansas. For each county we havedetailed maps and statistics. SinceGerman-speaking immigrants accountfor most of the “foreign language unitsof Kansas,” Carman’s work is an in-valuable basis for any study of theGerman dialects in Kansas. Unfor-tunately, as we have already notedabove, Carman’s statistics reveal thatmost of the German dialects in thestate have been assimilated into thedominant English-speaking culture.More importantly, however, Carman’sdata indicate that German dialects,while no longer being passed on to nextgeneration, are still spoken in a num-ber of large rural areas of Kansas,especially the Volga-German area inEllis, Rush, and Russell counties; theMennonite area in Marion, Harvey,McPherson, and Reno counties; theHannoverian Lutheran area inMarshall and Washington counties.

In the years since the publication

of Carman’s first volume (the finaltwo volumes of Carman’s study werepublished posthumously in 1974 andare available in the University of Kan-sas Archives), the German dialects inKansas received limited treatment. In1979 we offered a course at the Uni-versity of Kansas on the “GermanHeritage of Kansas and Missouri.”Out of that course arose the first pilotstudy of a German dialect in Kansas:“The Low German Dialect ofHermansberg.” That study gave im-petus to the idea of beginning a majorsurvey of the remaining German dia-lects in Kansas. By the fall of 1979,one graduate student in German hadexpressed an interest in doing a dia-lect study of the Volga-German dia-lect in Catherine in Ellis County. Inthe spring of 1980 we were able tooffer a graduate course on the Ger-man dialects. In addition to the workalready begun on the Low Germanarea and the Volga-German area, ourstudents began studies in McPhersonCounty (Moundridge). In each ofthese areas, confirming the data inCarman’s study, we found dialectspeakers willing to participate in oursurvey. In fact, our German-speak-ing informants have been enthusias-tic about this project. By 1981 ourproject was receiving support fromthe General Research Fund of theUniversity of Kansas.

The basis for our survey has beena direct interview with a sample ofdialect speakers in each community.These interviews are recorded on cas-sette tapes. After a phonetic tran-scription of each tape has been made,the tapes are preserved for future usein the Max Kade Center. Using thephonetic transcriptions of the interviewtexts, we prepare analyses of the pho-nological and morphological featuresof each dialect (the sound system andthe grammatical system). We canthen compare the features of our Kan-sas-German dialects with the featuresof previously analyzed German dia-lects in Central or Eastern Europe.

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This enables us to determine a linguis-tic classification for a Kansas-Germandialect. Often this is a simple task.If the group has come directly fromGermany to Kansas and has main-tained its ethnic unity more or less in-tact, we can be nearly certain that theKansas-German dialect should corre-spond directly to the community’splace of origin in Germany. We canuse this correspondence to shed lighton aspects of the development of thehome dialect and its offshoot in Kan-sas. On the other hand, we find dia-lects in Kansas, especially among theGermans from Russia, which simplycannot be said to derive directly froma point of origin in Germany. Thedetermination of the dialect’s possibleorigin in Germany is then a matter oflinguistic detective work. The fea-tures of the Kansas-German dialectmust be compared point by point withthe features of the dialects in Ger-many. We can be reasonably certainthat the area of greatest overlap points

to the ultimate origin of the dialect.Sometimes we can literally pinpointthe dialect’s origin; sometimes we finda case of what appears to be dialectmixture. Where one dialect has sur-vived relatively intact in the face ofseveral migrations and population mix-tures, we must then seek answers tothe questions how and why.

In the interviews we ask each in-formant to speak a series of forty sen-tences in his/her native German dia-lect. These so-called “Wenker-sen-tences” have been a standard tool inGerman dialectology for over a cen-tury. Normally the sentences are pre-sented to the informant in an Englishtranslation created by our staff ratherthan the Standard German of theoriginal set of sentences. This is donefor two very practical reasons: first,many dialect speakers have little orno knowledge of Standard German,speaking only a German dialect andEnglish; and second, dialect speakersoften view the dialect as a corrupt

form of the standard language, andwould like to be perceived as usingthe “correct” form of the word. Us-ing the standard language to presentthe sentences would thus only serveto confuse the informants. In addi-tion to the forty sentences, we askeach informant to provide the dialectequivalents for a series of isolatedvocabulary items. Each informant isto tell a short story or anecdote in thenative dialect. If two dialect speak-ers are present during an interview,we attempt to record actual conver-sational usage of the dialect. The lasttwo items allow the investigator to ob-serve the informants in a more natu-ral language setting.

The forty sentences used in thisstudy are the sentences (with someminor modifications) constructed in1876 by the German dialectologistGeorg Wenker to elicit dialect data inhis monumental study of the Germandialects in Central Europe commonlyreferred to as Der Deutsche

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Sprachatlas (the German linguisticatlas). The Wenker sentences are de-signed to provide information on allof the pertinent phonological and mor-phological features relating to the his-torical development of the Germandialects. Thus the sentences furnishan exhaustive database for the com-parative study of the German dialects(see Walther Mitzka, Handbuch zumDeutschen Sprachatlas [Marburg:Elwert, 1952]). It is interesting thatthese sentences, first used in the1870s, do not seem out of date withspeakers of Kansas-German dialects.The sentences often deal with aspectsof rural life (mowing hay, threshinggrain, selling cattle), which are quitefamiliar to our informants. Others,such as sentence number eleven (Ichwerde Dich über den Kopf miteinem hölzernen Kochlöffelschlagen, du Affe! “I’m going to hityou over your head with a woodenspoon, you monkey!”), always pro-duce a hearty laugh in addition to thedialect version of the sentence. Thevocabulary items, which we ask ourinformants, are taken from the list oftwo hundred items used in compilingDer Deutsche Wortatlas (the Ger-man word atlas) during the 1940s un-der the direction of Walther Mitzka.Again, the items are usually quite fa-miliar ones: godfather, godmother,brother-in-law, mother-in-law, horse,potato, hog, plow, etc.

In addition to establishing a lin-guistic atlas of German dialect mate-rials for Kansas in the Max KadeCenter, we work in cooperation withthe Institut für deutsche Sprache inMannheim, Germany, which has thetask of documenting German andGerman dialects throughout the world.The studies generated by our projectare monitored by our colleagues inMannheim so that interested scholarscan learn immediately of the types ofmaterials in our collection. To dateseveral projects have been com-pleted. Among them are Ph.D. dis-sertations on “The Volga German Dia-lect of Schoenchen, Kansas” by

Christopher Johnson and “The LowGerman Dialect of Concordia, Mis-souri” by William Ballew as well asan M.A. thesis on the phonology ofthe Volga German dialect ofCatherine, Kansas: “Dialektstudie desKatharinenstädter Deutsch” by IlseVogel Shire. Three Ph.D. disserta-tions are in progress: Swiss Germanin Bern, Kansas (Adrian Barradell);Bukovinian Bohemian German in Ellis,Kansas (Gabriele Lunte); and Men-nonite Low German among the mi-grant workers from the Chihuahua,Mexico, Mennonite colony who arenow situated in southwestern Kansas(Lisa Mays). The Center also sup-ported the research leading to anM.A. thesis at the University ofMannheim, Germany:“Untersuchungen zum Deutsch inKansas: Migration und Entwicklungdes Wolgadeutschen in Ellis und RushCounties” by Patrick Kaul.

—William Keel

Low German Resurgencein Western Missouri?

During the past decade twocommunities in nearby Missouri haveevidenced a resurgence in the use ofthe traditional immigrant Low Germandialects brought from the plains ofnorthern Germany to the prairie ofwestern Missouri beginning in the late1830s and early 1840s. Cole Campin Benton County and Concordia inLafayette County have bothestablished Low German heritagesocieties and hold annual Low German“theatre” performances each fall.These communities are of specialinterest to researchers of KansasGerman dialects since at least twelveHannoverian Lutheran settlements inKansas can trace their roots back tothese two Missouri islands of LowGerman speech, including Block nearPaola in Miami County and Linn andPalmer in Washington County.

In my dissertation, I examined theuse of Low German and its gradual

decline during the course of thesecond half of the twentieth centuryin Concordia, Missouri. Concordia isa farming community of around 1,200inhabitants about an hour’s drive eastof Kansas City on Interstate 70. Asa cohesive community, it has been inexistence since the middle of thenineteenth century and was populatedprimarily by chain migration from thearea north of Hannover (the modern-day German state of Lower Saxony).Hence, as an essentially NorthernGerman Lutheran community with aproud German heritage, manyConcordians of the older generationstill speak a dialect of Low German,modified only slightly from thelanguage of their ancestors whosettled in the southeastern part ofLafayette and adjacent counties in theperiod from the 1840s to the 1870s.This Low German dialect has beenpreserved to the present day in theform of a linguistic “time capsule.”

Despite attempts to preserve theLow German in skits, anecdotes,religious services, classes in thedialect, and word lists in an effort tocelebrate Concordia’s ethnic heritage,the eventual demise of the languageis certain. The last generation ofspeakers is generally over fifty yearsof age; most speakers would haveto be classified as elderly. At a recentperformance of the Low German“dinner theatre” in Concordiayounger members of the audiencewere polled for their reactions. Theythought is was a fitting way tocelebrate the community’s heritage,but they understood nothing in theskits. All that remains is the regretthat they did not learn the languageof their parents when it was stillpossible.

—William Ballew

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The Volga German Dialects of Kansas:Research Past and Present

The Volga Germans, attracted bythe prospect of inexpensive, largetracts of land, be-gan arriving inKansas from thesouthern Volgaregion of Russiain the mid 1870s.Their immigrantroute broughtmany through To-peka, Kansas,and eventuallyfurther west toRussell, Ellis andRush counties.

These immi-grants werespeakers of Ger-man dialects, de-scended fromemigrants wholeft their Germanhomeland in thesecond half of the 18th century tosettle along the southern Volga Riverat the invitation of Catherine theGreat. During the course of the fol-lowing century, German dialects per-sisted and prospered in the new settle-ment area, with only a few Russianwords entering into the day-to-day vo-cabulary of the majority of the speak-ers. After arriving in Kansas, the im-migrants continued to speak Germanas their first language up until the timeof World War I. After this, use ofGerman began to decline. The dia-lects are now in their last stages ofdecline, with very few speakers stillliving who have an active commandof German.

Scholars in Kansas have beenaware of the Volga Germans and thepersistence of their German dialectssince the early 1900s, with the high-light of research activity being thepublication of Carman’s ForeignLanguage Units of Kansas in 1962.Specific research into the dialects and

recording of speakers did not begin,however, until the mid 1970s. Larger-

been the basis for making compari-sons between the Volga German dia-

lects in Russiawith those inKansas.

Prior to1997, compari-sons of theVolga Germandialect datacollected inKansas withdata collectedby Dinges andhis colleaguescould only bemade using in-formation pro-vided by a fewarticles pub-lished byDinges in the1920s, mostnotably the ar-

ticle “Über unsere Mundarten,” pub-lished in 1923. This article was ac-companied by a map showing themajor German dialect characteristicsthat Dinges considered critical forcomparing the Volga German dialectswith the dialects back in Germany. A1918 publication, “Proben deutsch-russischer Mundarten aus denWolgakolonien und dem Gouvern-ement Cherson,” by von Unwerth,also provides some data about the dia-lects of World War I prisoners of warfrom the Volga German region of Rus-sia.

With the 1997 publication of theWolgadeutscher Sprachatlas(WDSA) by Berend and Post, morecomplete data regarding the dialectcharacteristics of the Volga Germansin Russia are now accessible. The285 maps contained in the volume dis-play the results obtained from six dif-ferent dialect questionnaires that werecirculated in the Volga German regionbetween 1913 and 1930.

scale recording projects were con-ducted in the early 1980s and again inthe early 1990s. Recordings of theinterviews conducted between 1980and 1995 in Ellis, Rush and Russellcounties in Kansas are kept at theMax Kade Center for German-American Studies at the University ofKansas. These recordings have beenthe basis for a number of researcharticles, a master’s thesis and a Ph.D.dissertation.

The Volga German dialects inRussia have also been the subject ofresearch. Since the Volga Germanswere deported from the Volga regionduring the Stalin era, research islargely based on data that was col-lected during the 1910s and1920s byAugust Lonsinger, Georg Dinges andothers. Their research goal was toproduce a dialect atlas of Volga Ger-man similar to other German dialectatlases appearing in Germany. Theynever achieved this goal in their life-times, but their other publications have

Old Main Street going from Schoenchen north toward Hays.

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Research has shown to some ex-tent that speakers from different vil-lages in Russia who shared some com-mon speech habits, settled together inKansas. The publication of new datacould make it possible to make astronger statement to this effect.

There is also still need to conductfurther fieldwork in Topeka, Kansas.A large group of immigrants chose toremain in Topeka and work for therailroad and factories rather thanmove further west to the farmlands.These people settled largely togetherin northeast Topeka and maintained astrong community for many years. Itwould be very interesting to see howthe dialects persisted in this urbanenvironment.

It is very important that all ca-pable, willing informants be identifiedin all areas where the Volga Germanssettled in Kansas while there is stilltime. Recording these speakers notonly helps us with research into thedialects, it also preserves this impor-tant aspect of the Volga German cul-ture in Kansas for future generations.

—Chris Johnson

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The Catholic BohemianDialect of Ellis, Kansas

Beginning in the 1880s, manyGerman-speaking immigrants leftBukovina for the United States. Theyemigrated from the land that was thenpart of the Hapsburg Empire (todayin the north part of the Ukraine and inthe south part of Romania) becauseof severe economic hardships. Theysettled in west-central Kansas in thecounties of Ellis, Trego, and Rooks.Since the town of Ellis was linked tothe rest of the state by the KansasPacific Railway, it became the cen-ter of these German-speaking com-munities.

The research about the languagespoken by the Bukovina immigrantsreveals much about their fascinatingbackground and history. They formedtwo distinct groups in Ellis. The im-migrants of one segment have calledthemselves Lutheran “Swabian” Ger-mans, who came originally fromsouthwestern Germany. The other

settlers were the Catholic BohemianGermans, who found their way toAmerica and Kansas via Bukovinafrom the Bohemian Forest, today situ-ated in the Western Czech Republic.

Today it is difficult to find Ellisresidents who can still speak the lan-guage of their ancestors. My disser-tation represents an effort to docu-ment and analyze the speech of aswiftly disappearing linguistic tradi-tion. On the basis of my recordings ithas been possible to find two distinctlinguistic traces: one, which belongsto the Lutheran “Swabians,” points toorigins in the Palatinate dialect fromSouthwestern Germany, and the other,which represents the focus of my re-search, that of the Catholic Bohemi-ans, is linked with the Central Bavar-ian dialect. Even if the family docu-ments have not always survived, therecord of these immigrants’ spokenwords reflects the harsh reality oftheir efforts to find a secure home-land.

—Gabi Lunte

Bukovina in East Central Europe

The data from the Wolga-deutscher Sprachatlas represent thestate of the German dialects in Rus-sia roughly a half-century after themajor exodus of Volga Germans to theAmericas. The speakers who pro-vided the data probably representlargely the two generations descendedfrom those who remained behind inRussia.

The data collected in Kansas alsoreflect, to a significant part, the speechcharacteristics of the two generationsthat followed the original immigrants,with the majority of the informants be-ing the grandchildren of immigrants.

The new WDSA data nowmakes it more possible than ever todo some interesting comparative re-search with the data collected in Rus-sia, i.e., to discover how the dialectsof those who remained differ fromthose who emigrated to Kansas. Butfirst, the published WDSA data mustbe reorganized to make this taskeasier.

Currently, the data from the 285maps of the WDSA are being sortedby city, rather than by lexical item.Once this is accomplished, it will beeasier to compare data from thetowns in Kansas directly with thesource villages in Russia. Only thevillages that have been reported in thelocal histories of the immigration willbe the subjects of this reorganizationof data.

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German Mennonitesfrom Mexico to

Southwestern Kansas

My dissertation will focus on themigration of German Mennonitesfrom Mexico to southwestern Kan-sas during the last twenty years. Dueto problems of overpopulation inMexico, this migration has intensifiedrecently. This group of Germanspeakers is especially interesting be-cause it has preserved its Low Ger-man dialect for about two hundredyears.

The so-called “Old Colony” Men-nonites left their homeland near theVistula River in West Prussia in 1788-89 and 1804 for Russia and then mi-grated to Canada in the 1870s and1880s. When the Canadian govern-ment refused to allow them to edu-cate their children solely in Germanafter World War I, about 7,000 set-tlers left Canada for Chihuahua inMexico. Despite their attempts toremain isolated from “outside” soci-

ety, economic hardships have forcedmany to return to Canada. But a sig-nificant group found Kansas to bemore promising. My field work willdocument the current linguistic fea-tures of these Kansas Mennonites anddetermine the influence that Spanish-and English-speaking contexts havehad on their Low German dialect.

—Lisa Mays

The Dahl Family:A Story of Mennonite

Migration

In a recent display in our EngelGerman Library, Ursula Humburgorganized information and illustrationsabout the Mennonite background ofDr. Dennis Dahl, who retired from hisposition as a physician at the KUHealth Center, and his wife, NancyDahl, KU Professor of Biochemistryand Cell & Molecular Biology. TheDahls were able to draw on diariesand letters to reconstruct a lengthy

journey. It began about two hundredyears ago in Prussia in 1803-1805,when the ancestors of the Dahls joinedabout 350 Mennonite families to moveto Russia, following the earlier invita-tion of Catherine the Great. Theysettled in the Crimea. But after manydecades of difficult living conditionsthe initial promise of a secure home-land faded. Experiencing extremeeconomic hardship and the loss ofreligious freedom and their exemptionfrom military service, the Dahls de-parted on the crest of a new migra-tion movement in 1874 for the UnitedStates, and they settled, finally, inMcPherson County, Kansas. Thestory of an adventurous and circui-tous migration from Germany to Rus-sia and then to Kansas is one that isfamiliar to many communities of ourstate.

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Paul Einert (1901-1997)

Paul Einert was a friend, an ac-tive supporter, and a generous bene-factor of the Max Kade Center forGerman-American Studies. Born inSeifersbach near Chemnitz in Ger-many on 16 June 1901, he grew upand received his education in Saxony.As a boy in his teens, his life wasshaped by the major experience of theFirst World War and the“Wandervogel” movement. His as-sociation with this German youthmovement became an inspiring andinvigorating force throughout his life.

The German youth movement—the all-comprising term for the“Wandervogel” and the many otheryouth groups that followed suit—hadgained new momentum after the war.The movement signified criticism ofthe encrusted nineteenth-century wayof life and an attempt for spiritual andcultural renewal. In striving for free-dom from hierarchical and institutionalpressure, it became an early form ofanti-establishment movement. Asimple lifestyle, love for nature, ap-preciation of folklore, and responsi-bility to society were important con-cepts defining its goals.

Einert’s decision to emigrate andto seek his fortune in the UnitedStates must have been influenced bydifficult economic circumstances inpostwar Germany. After immigrationreopened for German citizens, hecame with the new immigrant wavethat reached its peak in 1924. Firsthe settled in Buffalo, New York, butsoon he moved to New Jersey, wherehe remained for most of his life, inthe Englewood-Fort Lee area, close

to New York, working as a certifiedpublic accountant.

Early on, still in the 1920s, hecame into contact with a group ofother recent immigrants who wereinspired by the German youth move-ment. Whenever possible, they met,hiked, sang together, presented the-ater sketches, practiced folk dancing,held discussions, and organized liter-ary events. They helped each otherin gaining the skills their new environ-ment required, serving as a kind ofimmigrant aid society. After the Sec-ond World War they saw their duty inextending help to people in need inwar-torn Germany, sending food, es-pecially to writers, artists, and intel-lectuals. Their generous actions andactivities reflected the best traditionof the German youth movement.

Within only a few years, still inthe mid-1920s, similar groups cameinto being in other parts of America.This was not the result of group im-migration; instead, the individual im-migrants found each other and theircommon backgrounds and interestshere. In 1927 the New York groupissued a Rundbrief, a newsletter,which developed into a monthly peri-odical called Rundbrief derdeutschen Jugendbewegung inNord-Amerika. It was distributed bysubscription for many years as a mim-eographed publication among mem-bers and friends across the countryand, after the Second World War,throughout the world. The Rundbriefis still being published by the secondgeneration of members, currently asa quarterly, with its editorial office in

Scranton, Pennsylvania. It has thusbecome the longest continuing publi-cation of the German youth move-ment.

Like many members of theRundbrief circle, Einert was an ac-tive contributor to its publications. Hewrote articles regularly, most recentlyon his trips to Germany and about hishometown in Saxony. In the late1970s, he contacted the Max KadeCenter and inquired about the goalsof the Center. He came to Lawrencetwice in the 1980s. After he becameacquainted with our book resourcesand our efforts to develop the collec-tion, he took great interest and becamea major supporter.

Einert first donated an almostcomplete set of the Rundbrief (ofwhich today only two complete setsare known to exist). Then he pro-ceeded to add his personal library ofrelevant books. Finally, he establishedcontacts with other members of theNew York group, Hermann andLucienne Schmid, from whom theCenter received another large dona-tion of books. These donations havebeen significant because they docu-ment the history, ideas, and personalexperiences of a creative and produc-tive group of immigrants.

We are deeply indebted to PaulEinert, who embodied the spirit andtradition of the German youth move-ment in America, and who helped tobuild the Max Kade collection into aunique resource for research in Ger-man-American studies. He died on19 May 1997 in California.

—Helmut Huelsbergen

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making arrangements to acquire cop-ies of Albert Bloch’s manuscripts andcorrespondence. Paul Gebhardt hasbeen able to assemble a complete fileof Bloch caricatures and accompa-nying editorials in the St. Louis Mir-ror.

We have been in touch with theLion Feuchtwanger Archives at theUniversity of Southern California, andin conjunction with ProfessorSautermeister’s course on exile litera-ture this spring we have agreed to of-fer a series of grants for KU gradu-ate students in German (offeredjointly by the Feuchtwanger Archives,the Max Kade Center, and ProfessorSautermeister). Lisa Mays has beenthe first KU recipient, and we expecttwo further grants to materialize forCourtney Peltzer and Kai Heidkamp.These grants will allow our studentsto work in the excellent archival andlibrary facilities of USC.

On April 23-26 several of us willbe attending and presenting papers atthe annual Symposium of the Societyof German-American Studies at In-diana University in Indianapolis. MaxKade Visiting Professor GertSautermeister will speak on “Die

Erfahrung der Zeit: Lion Feucht-wanger als Emigrant zwischenFrankreich und Amerika,” WilliamKeel on “From the BadischeVolkswehr to the Missouri HomeGuard: Wendelin Bührle — a Com-mon Soldier in Two Struggles for Free-dom,” Frank Baron on “ThomasMann’s Exile Politics and DoktorFaustus,” Elke Champion, who suc-cessfully defended her dissertationlast December, on “The Exile Expe-rience as Reflected in the Correspon-dence of Albert Bloch,” and PaulGebhardt on “Arthur Jerome Eddyand the Introduction of German Ex-pressionist Art in the United States(1913-1922).”

Finally, we have taken initiativesin making minor improvements in theappearance of the Max Kade Cen-ter, within the building by arrangingfor the framing and mounting of aseries of posters on German-Ameri-can history, and outside by arrangingfor work on appropriate sidewalk ac-cess and landscaping.

Frank Baron, Director,Max Kade Center forGerman-American Studies

The Max Kade Committee (Wil-liam Keel, Helmut Huelsbergen,Frank Baron, Rose Jones, and PaulGebhardt) has met regularly to dis-cuss various projects: the work on acomputerized catalogue of our collec-tion, the building of an immigrant/ex-ile collection for the twentieth century,projects to promote research projectsat the Max Kade Center, and propos-als to improve the facilities at theSudler House in which the Center islocated.

We can report that Rose Joneshas been able to acquire, decipher, andadapt the software needed for thecataloging, and the actual process ofrecording our holdings has begun. TheAlexander von Humboldt Foundation(Bonn), the Austrian Cultural Institute(New York), and the Leo Baeck In-stitute (New York) have generouslydonated numerous reference worksto help us establish a practical re-search center for exile studies. Anapplication for further book acquisi-tions is pending with the DeutscheForschungsgemeinschaft (Bonn). Wehave been able to acquire originalexile letters of author Carl Zuckmayerand composer Ernst Krenek. We are

Max Kade Committee Report

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Max Kade Center for German-American StudiesSudler HouseDepartment of Germanic Languages and LiteraturesThe University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-2127

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