Prussianized Germany

Prussianized Germany: Americans of Foreign Descent and America’s Cause (1917) collects an address by Otto Hermann Kahn (1867-1934), the German-born New York banker and Kuhn, Loeb partner best known as a patron of the Metropolitan Opera. Delivered before the Chamber of Commerce of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on September 26, 1917, the speech argues that Prussian militarism had corrupted the Germany of Kahn’s youth and calls on Americans of foreign descent to stand wholly behind the Allied war effort. Kahn, who became a naturalized American citizen in 1917, was among the most visible German-born advocates of the US cause. Read today, the pamphlet is a primary source for home-front persuasion campaigns and the loyalty pressures placed on immigrant communities during the First World War. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.