Some Germans in US were sent to internment camps in WW II

AP/NY Times:

In 1943, 17-year-old Eberhard Fuhr was taken out of his high school classroom in Cincinnati, arrested by FBI agents, and sent off to an internment camp for ''enemy aliens'' in Texas, where he spent the next 4 1/2 years with his family. Thousands of Germans experienced a similar fate. They were detained in far fewer numbers in this country than Japanese.

The stories of the Germans have gotten little attention so far, but the Senate took a step toward changing that this week, voting to look into the treatment of Germans and other Europeans in the U.S. during World War II.

The legislation's status is uncertain because it was passed as an amendment to the immigration bill, which stalled in the Senate this week.

Still, just getting a vote on the issue was an accomplishment for Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who represents a large German population. For the last six years, a hold placed by an anonymous Republican senator had kept it from coming up for a vote.

...

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., opposed the bill, saying it was based on findings ''that slander America incorrectly.'' Those findings say, in part, that U.S. wartime policies were ''devastating'' to Germans and Italians living in the United States.

Sessions also cited a May 8 letter by Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hertling said that the Justice Department contacted the senior historian for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum back in 2001, ''who advised that that bill's identical depiction of the treatment of Axis citizens and European Americans was 'outrageously exaggerated.'''

...

According to retired history professor Stephen Fox, who has written a book about the FBI roundup of German Americans during World War II, roughly 3,000 Italians and 11,000 Germans were detained in the U.S., including some Germans who were sent here from Latin America and some German Jews.

More than 120,000 Japanese-Americans, including U.S. citizens, were imprisoned during World War II.

In general, Fox said, the FBI targeted resident alien Germans who were involved in German organizations, or made comments sympathetic to Hitler, or had contact with relatives in Germany. ''By far, most were innocent,'' he said.

Fuhr said he was arrested several months after his parents had been arrested and interned. They were reunited along with his two brothers at a camp in Crystal City, Texas. Now 82, Fuhr lives outside Chicago.

...

My guess is that Sessions was responsible for the hold on the legislation.

This is the first I have heard of the German and Italian roundup. Texas has several large German communities, but Crystal City is not one of them. It is mainly Hispanic.

Fredricksburg in the Hill country has many Germans as you might guess from the name. Among them was Admiral Chester Nimitz who commander in chief in the Pacific in World War II.

Washington County, Texas also has a large German population--approximately 32 percent. Judging by the high number of Lutheran Churches in the county, they probably immigrated for religious reasons in the 1800's. One of the larger businesses in the area is the Germania Insurance Company.