An Interview with Hermann Wellenreuther

Professor Hermann Wellenreuther of the University of Göttingen and I were visiting fellows at the Huntington Library during 2002–3. Among the subjects of our conversation was the interesting work being done in Germany and elsewhere on early America that is not generally known in the United States. Hermann proposed that Early American Studies remedy the situation by publishing reports and bibliographical essays from time to time summarizing recent work being done overseas. Those who do not know Professor Wellenreuther and his superb and voluminous output can consult his own publications cited in his research report, which follows. I thought our readers might wish to know more about Germany's most important historian of the early United States and some of the exciting projects on which he is embarked. This interview was conducted at the Huntington in April 2003.

WP: I'd like to start off by noting you were born in 1941 in Freiburg. You grew up in an interesting if not a pleasant time. Can you tell us a little about your childhood—do you remember the war and what happened shortly after it?

HW: In 1941 the war was at its height, but as a baby I didn't remember much. My first memories relate to my family in late 1944 in the little market town Marktbreit in the valley of the river Main. More vivid memories are slightly later when my mother with her children went back to the village where she grew up, a small town in the North Baden area called Aglasterhausen. There I recall the American GIs coming around about once a month in a jeep, giving us chocolates, making sure the village was still there, and that the farmers had contributed their share to the general stock of food—grain, meat, milk, cheese, and so on. The village was something like those that existed in the United States in the early twentieth century. There was very little technology. I recall that when a car came along, and it couldn't have happened more than once or twice a week, you definitely heard it. There was no television. I think the police and the doctor had a telephone. There was electricity but running water was a luxury and outhouses were the rule.

Figure 1.

Hermann Wellenreuther. Photograph by George W. Boudreau, Williamsburg 2004.

At the same time, living in this postwar German village was fairly pleasant, not romantic, but nothing like the extreme hardship you experienced in the big cities. I have a vivid memory of refugees from the cities coming to beg for food and I remember the tensions between villagers and townspeople. I'll never forget how my grandmother used to whistle for us five siblings whenever anyone from Heidelberg or Mannheim came. She would line us up like organ pipes and tell the city people that she had to look after five children and could not possibly give them a hundredweight of potatoes. But then at the harvest there was plenty. The villagers blamed the townspeople for the perceived problems of the 1920s and 1930s. Postwar famine was definitely an urban, not a rural phenomenon. There was public schooling, but you had better bring your ham and your dozen eggs once a month to the teacher.

Half the village population was made up of refugees from the eastern part of Germany, which put a tremendous strain on the local infrastructure. The population of about twelve hundred inhabitants doubled within a year, and you can imagine what that meant for schooling, health care, social services, and the like. People who came in were easily recognized—it was easy to distinguish between the "ins" and "outs." Fortunately, we belonged to the "ins" because my mother came from that village. I grew up with the local dialect—the outsiders had to learn it. They lived in wooden barracks. The strain on the village lasted until the mid-1950s. In 1955, the Supreme Court nullified the last election that was fought between the "ins" and the "outs" over the mayor of the village...