Preserving German Texan Identity: Reminiscences of William A. Trenckmann, 1859–1935 ed. by Walter L. Buenger, Walter D. Kamphoefner (review)

William A. Trenckmann, the Texas-born son of German immigrants, lived from 1859 to 1935. His life thus spanned from the Civil War to the Great Depression. He was first a schoolteacher in several small rural German Texas communities, and then the editor of a German-language newspaper, in the Austin County seat of Bellville from 1891 to 1909 and in Austin from 1909 until the end of his life. Das Wochenblatt—literally, the weekly leaf, that is, a weekly paper—was initially founded to provide news and writing on a wide variety of topics for German Texans in the rural area around Bellville, but it grew to serve an audience of German Texans, rural and urban, across the state.

Trenckmann first published his reminiscences—in German—in the pages of Das Wochenblatt between 1931 and 1933. They were first translated into English in the late 1950s by Trenckmann’s son William and daughter Else. In good German fashion, there were occasional lengthy sentences and paragraphs, which have been subdivided for this edition. The book’s value is enhanced by the inclusion of two short pieces dealing with Trenckmann’s memories of Christmas during the troubled times of the Civil War and his experiences as one of the first students at what is now Texas A&M University.

The editors of the present volume, Walter L. Buenger and Walter D. Kamphoefner, have provided an excellent introduction, which could easily stand alone as a scholarly article. They have made the reading much easier with thorough annotations of references to those individuals who were prominent in late-nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century Texas, but who are no longer well known. In addition to serving as a detailed biography of Trenckmann, the introduction frames his life in two critical respects: as a vocal advocate for the preservation of German language and culture in Texas, and as a “go-between” serving to negotiate the interests of German Texans while bringing them into the Anglo-American majority (p. 26).

The editors show that Trenckmann, the child of liberal Freidenkers (free-thinkers), grew up in a family that was not sympathetic to slavery or the Confederate cause, even though two sons served in the Confederate army. Trenckmann long remembered the harsh treatment that secessionists had delivered to Germans who were not sufficiently enthusiastic about the war. However, he came to support efforts to suppress the voting rights (and, indeed, other civil rights) of African Americans and of poor whites through such means as literacy tests and poll taxes. For Trenckmann this trade-off allowed German Texans to oppose prohibition and Sunday closing laws, both of which they saw as antithetical to German culture, while remaining within the white Texan mainstream.

This volume is a welcome addition to scholarship on German immigration to Texas and on Texas political history during the complicated and often tragic years of Reconstruction and Jim Crow.