The Waves of Immigration

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 52, 1984, No. 4

The Waves of Immigration

BY RONALD K. DEWSNUP

THE TIDE OF EMIGRANTS FROM German-speaking areas settling in Utah, though tremendously influenced by the Mormon church's "call to gather," has ebbed and flowed with the governmental policies and economic conditions prevalent in both the United States and the German-speaking countries. As the possibilities for material comfort and economic security in the mother country increased, the idea of emigration became much less attractive than during times of depression or economic instability. As a result, changing conditions in Germany and the surrounding regions caused a wave effect in the flow of immigrants to Utah. Two historical events, the First and Second World Wars, give boundaries to the study of these waves and create three definite phases of increasing and decreasing immigrant numbers.

TABLE 1: TOTAL NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS BORN IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND SWITZERLAND RESIDING IN UTAH AND COLORADO, 1850-1970*

Table 1 with its accompanying graph (table 2) shows the total number of Utah residents born in the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) for the years 1850 through 1970. The corresponding figures for Colorado have been included for comparison to show the statistics for another western state. The information, drawn from the U.S. Census, allows one to see the general rise in the number of first-generation immigrants to the state until the years immediately preceding and following the First World War. The next phase, the interim between the wars and immediately following World War II, records a slump in the figures for foreign-born German-speaking immigrants within Utah's borders. This in turn gives way to a sharp rise in the totals during the latter 1950s, peaking in 1960 and declining slightly into 1970. Statistics for the 1970s were unavailable due to a change in format in the U.S. Census for 1980, but, as will be shown, it may be assumed that these years also saw a decrease in the number of immigrants coming to Utah because of the more stable conditions existing in the present-day Federal Republic of Germany and the concrete borders erected between the Germanies in 1961.

TABLE 3: NUMBER OF UTAH RESIDENTS BORN IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND SWITZERLAND, 1850-19701111111118

By separating the statistics presented in table 1 and its accompanying graph for the three countries considered here, one sees in table 3 and its corresponding chart (table 4) the early Swiss domination of the immigration totals, but the 1880s put Germany into the lead — a lead that was increased in the following decades to the point where immigrants from Germany, East and West, accounted for more than 72 percent of the total German-speaking foreign-born population of Utah in 1970. (The 1910 figure for Austrian-born immigrants may be misleading. It is most probable that the great majority of these "Austrians" were actually of Slavic descent, born in countries that were at the time under Austrian rule.

Tables 5 and 6 are perhaps the most significant to the present study. In plotting the net change in the number of foreign-born immigrants by their countries of origin (either Germany, Austria, or Switzerland) the actual increase or decrease in the number of firstgeneration immigrants can be presented. This chart answers the questions of how many German-speaking immigrants came to Utah and stayed, when they came and, to a certain extent, who came (country of origin). With the number of immigrants established, this study can move on to consider reasons for the various changes in immigration figures in the context of the three phases mentioned earlier.

TABLE 5: PER DECADE INCREASE OR DECREASE IN THE NUMBER OF UTAH RESIDENTS BORN IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND SWITZERLAND, 1850-1970*

The first of these time periods, 1852 to 1918, encompasses the main thrust of the LDS practice of "the gathering to Zion" and also the change in Utah's economy from the agricultural vision of the refugee Mormon pioneers to a mostly urban society supported by railroad and mining enterprises. In Germany during this period several baronies and principalities were united under the Second German Reich in 1871. This era ended, as did the Reich, with the end of World War I. Though the immigration figures rose and fell twice during this period (see tables 5 and 6), the experiences of these German immigrants in what might be termed "pioneer Utah" binds them together.

Until the driving of the golden spike at Promontory on May 10, 1869, to complete the transcontinental railroad, the number of non-Mormon residents of the territory was negligible at best. In fact, aside from the merchants who followed the military, the military itself, and the forty-niners who had opted to stay in Utah, there were few non-Mormons in the area and even fewer non-Mormon Europeans, well into more modern times:

The non-Mormon Europeans differed from their Mormon brethren in that they did not come to America with the idea of settling in Utah. Many came west only after living for years in other parts of the country, attracted by opportunities in Utah as the region became increasingly integrated into the national economy.

Only after the railroad had come and the mining industry had shown some promise did the non-Mormon population begin its climb, and climb it did so that by 1890 Utah's non-Mormon population equaled 43.9 percent of the total. However, most of these people were not in the state to stay. They had come looking for speculative work, and many soon moved on. It was, therefore, the proselytizing efforts of Mormon missionaries that resulted in the first groups of direct immigrants to Utah from German-speaking areas.

German-speaking immigrants from Austria have always lagged statistically behind their fellow German-speakers; due to the early successes of LDS missionaries, the Swiss took the lead in immigration totals. As was seen in table 4, the number of foreign-born Utahns from Switzerland followed a normal curve, rising gently to the 1910 figure and falling slowly through 1970. The net immigration figures recorded in table 6 show that the only major increase occurred in 1890. This is easily attributed to increased Mormon missionary activity in Switzerland at that time.

For Germany immigration, however, this early period shows two peaks with their corresponding valleys on table 6. Through 1880 the rise is gentle, but the next decade shows a sharper increase in the number of foreign-born, German-speaking residents of Utah. These changes can definitely be linked to economic factors in Utah and Germany.

The year 1848 saw the beginnings of real social unrest in Germany with the March Revolution in Prussia. Reacting to the February Revolution in France, the German Confederation announced its eagerness to begin reorganization and modernization and adopted red, gold, and black as its colors with a golden eagle on a black background. However, the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, declared that he would rule "in accordance with the laws of God and State" and not according to the wishes of "so-called representatives of the people." In anger the Liberals began a revolution of sorts on March 18 in Berlin and the king was forced to save himself and the crown by parading down the streets "surrounded by waving banners of black, red, and gold." Other uprisings were recorded in Vienna, Baden, and Frankfurt. It was shortly after this time that Simon Bamberger, who eventually became governor of Utah and whose father was involved in the uprisings of 1848, left Germany in search of freedom and social mobility. Gerhart Hauptmann, in his play Die Weber {The Weavers), describes the deplorable conditions forced upon the working classes, among whom was his own grandfather, and explores the causes and end products of small-scale uprisings. His descriptions could cause one to ask why more people did not leave Germany during this period.

The first decline in net immigration totals came in the decade between 1890 and 1900. This was surely due in part to the enactment of some progressive legislation in Germany. In 1883 health insurance laws were passed, followed by the enactment of accident insurance legislation from 1884 to 1887 and old age and disability insurance provisions in 1889." Certainly these measures provided incentives to remain at home in Germany. Furthermore, the Constitution, given to all of Germany with the formation of the Second German Empire in 1871, granted certain freedoms outright so that they were no longer subject to the whims of rulers of the various German states.

Utah's history was particularly stormy during the 1880s and the 1890s because of the fight over the practice of polygamy and the political influence of the Mormons. When the church's assets were seized by the Utah Commission on behalf of the federal government, the financial aid given by the LDS church to some immigrants through the Perpetual Emigrating Fund was cut off.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the LDS church began discouraging immigration to Utah. Plans for a worldwide church required the strengthening of individual congregations in Germany and the rest of the world. In addition, laws passed by Congress began to limit the number of immigrants from individual countries. Using this legislation to help them discourage immigration, Mormon leaders began printing articles in their official publications emphasizing the negative aspects of coming to a new land.

The decade ending in 1910 showed a substantial rise in net immigration to Utah from German-speaking areas. Though no specific governmental or economic factors can be shown in the countries of origin, Utah was experiencing economic growth in the mining industry and railroad construction. Jobs were easy to find. The entry of many German-speakers into Utah during this period probably reflects a migration of workers and speculators to the state from other parts of America.

The end of the initial period of German immigration came with World War I. Immigration figures fell by over a thousand, and the decade ending in 1920 actually recorded a net out-migration of German-speaking foreign-born inhabitants.

The interim between World War I and World War II, along with the decade of the 1940s, brought immense change within the German-speaking countries and especially in Germany itself. The representative Weimar Republic took over the government of Germany in 1919. Reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, coupled with the loss of much of Germany's manpower and the cost of reconstruction, greatly crippled efforts by the new government to stabilize the country. Radical parties arose, among which was the National Socialist German Workers' party with Adolf Hitler at its head. Depression ravaged the country and the new Nazi party incited the masses against their leaders. Then, under Hitler's rule, Germany began to stabilize with the help of an economy based on preparations for war.

During the period of greatest depression in Germany another rise in immigration from German-speaking countries was recorded. Then the depression hit the United States as well. As the economy in Germany began to stabilize and even recover, the American economy was rapidly deteriorating. The two coincident conditions, along with the new war effort in Germany, combined to lower the number of German-born residents of Utah recorded in 1940. Throughout the next decade, there appears to have been a gentle rise in the net immigration figures for German-speaking residents in Utah, but actually, until after 1945, there were practically no immigrants. Even after that time, United States immigration legislation kept the figures low through 1950.

Because of the war Utah rose to one of the highest levels of prosperity it had reached since its beginnings with the rapid development of military installations and defense-related industries during the early 1940s. One of the new facilities was a prisoner of war camp for Germans located in Ogden. Some of the present German residents of the state were interned there until after the war and later returned because they liked the area. An extremely skilled artisan, Frederick Weber, is just such an example. He is most widely known in Utah as the craftsman who repaired the Christus statue on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Reconstruction and governmental changes in occupied Germany were major reasons for the tremendous postwar influx of Germans after immigration restrictions were eased. The present German republics — the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic — came into being as separate entities in 1949. An enduring symbol of the breakup of the former German Empire is the Berlin Wall built in August 1961. Since the division of Germany each German republic has pursued its own interests and achieved stability and economic development in its own way.

As the incentives to come to America and hence to Utah were decreased by detente and economic stability in the two countries, more and more Germans have opted to remain in their homeland.

The non-Mormon German-speakers who eventually came to Utah followed much the same path as their Mormon counterparts. The journey to Utah was similar in many respects for both groups, though the non-Mormons (once they reached the American shores) usually came to Utah in a much more roundabout way.

The mode of travel has varied greatly since 1847. The transcontinental railroad replaced the long and difficult trek overland. The use of steamships and, later, the jet airliner shortened the trip from Germany to Utah to a few days and then hours. For those whose fate it was to come to Utah in the 1850s and 1860s the voyage began as they traveled to a port city on the North Sea. After crossing to England they would embark from Liverpool as steerage passengers on a two-month voyage across the Atlantic, arriving in port at New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, or another harbor. From the East Coast a train took them to the current end of the railroad line. From there a wagon train (or handcart company for some of the Mormon immigrants) carried the newcomers into the Salt Lake Valley. But Salt Lake was not the final destination for some.

Mary Ann Hafen began her trek from Switzerland as a young girl. She traveled with her family up the Rhine River to Rotterdam where they boarded a small vessel to cross the North Sea to Liverpool. From there they were on the Atlantic Ocean for weeks and sometimes feared for their lives:

. . . There arose a great storm next day. The waves came up like mountains and broke over the deck. We were all ordered under deck and the water splashed on us as we went down the steps. All night the storm raged. Our ship tossed about like a barrel on a wild sea. Two large beams or masts broke off and we were driven many miles back.

Even the captain cried out, "We are lost!" but the storm cleared and repairs were made. After they arrived in New York Hafen enjoyed her first meal on shore: "We were served with good light bread and sweet milk. After long weeks of 'zwieback,' or hard tack, and dried pea soup, this was a happy change."

The U.S. Immigration Commission investigated the conditions steerage passengers had to endure in the trans-Atlantic crossing:

The berth, 6 feet long and 2 feet wide and with 2 1/2 feet of space above it, is all the space to which the steerage passenger can assert a definite right. . . . No sick cans are furnished, and not even large receptacles for waste. . . . The passengers . . . [carry] the crude eating utensils given them to use throughout the journey [to the food line]. . . . Naturally there is a rush to secure a place in line and afterwards a scramble for the single warm water faucet, which has to serve the needs of hundreds.

The report also cited the filth, the stench, the improper ventilation, etc., aboard ship and ended with a description of the total lack of discipline among the passengers.

The German-speaking Mormon immigrants were able to avoid many of the poor conditions suffered by other immigrant groups because of experiences of earlier Mormon groups coming from England and Scandinavia who paved the way for them. The church, too, gave specific instructions about what to take:

Passengers furnish their own beds and bedding. A straw mattress will answer very well for sleeping upon when they do not bring feather or other beds with them, Each single passenger also requires a box or barrel to hold provisions; and the following articles for cooking, &c. — a broiler, saucepan, fryingpan, tin porriger, tin plate, tin dish, knife, fork, spoon, and a tin vessel to hold 3 quarts of water.

In the case of families, the items mentioned were to be of a "suitable size" for all; and though the water bottles could be of any size or number, "they must hold the number of quarts due the whole family per day." Further instructions were given about luggage with the stipulation that only the absolutely essential could be retained with the individual passenger. All else would be stowed in the hold.

The LDS church had an agent in Liverpool who arranged the chartering of a vessel and assisted the immigrants with any questions or concerns, and he arranged the immigrant groups into a "cooperative-authoritarian, self-imposed government" that allowed for greatly improved discipline. Group leaders assigned cleaning and cooking details, and religious services were held at least once daily. Still, despite all of the efforts made to ease the journey's difficulties, one immigrant reported in Der Stern, the official Germanlanguage publication of the Mormon church, on an ocean crossing made in 1860 that the voyage was truly one of endurance. There were 1,000 immigrants on the ship with a very small kitchen, so that anyone eating more than once a day was very lucky. Had they not brought dried fruits and some sausage, they would have "suffered from real hunger."

Louise Graehl told of seven and a half weeks at sea aboard the John M. Wood in a company of Swiss and German immigrants and how happy they were to dock finally in New Orleans. However,these early immigrant journeys allowed no time for any leisure or sightseeing:

Without even getting a look at the beautiful city, we were ushered on a steamboat that was to transport us to St. Louis. We were twelve days on that boat. After eight days in St. Louis we took another steamboat for Kansas where we were to begin our camping life. This was indeed something new for us. The fixing of tents under the trees in the wood, the building of a campfire, the baking of our bread in baking kettles, the washing of our clothes and the tending of our baby boy just learning to walk were sometimes trying. . . .

Two long months at sea and the trip up the Mississippi did not end the immigrants' ordeal. Graehl wrote further of her experiences on the plains after her oldest daughter died and was buried in the wilderness:

It was the beginning of July that our tiresome journey across the plains begun. We found out when we were ready to start that we lacked many things that would be needed on the road and that it would be difficult to procure them.

Her husband became discouraged and even left the group for a while, but he rejoined them and the journey dragged on:

We had been traveling a few days. I was in the wagon with my three little ones, when all at once we had a stampede. Our team composed of two yokes of oxen and another one, started running in the grass that at that place was about five feet high. Sometimes the wagons came near wrecking each other, then again the animals ran in different directions not seeming to feel any trouble at pulling their heavy loads.

After that episode Louise had to hold her baby in one arm and help her husband steer with the other.

Mary Ann Hafen, the Swiss immigrant referred to earlier, related her experiences as one of the handcart pioneers of 1860. A group of 126 persons traveled under Oscar B. Stoddard from Florence, Nebraska, on July 6 with twenty-two handcarts and three provisioned wagons drawn by oxen:

Even when it rained the company did not stop traveling. A cover on the handcart shielded the two younger children. The rest of us found it more comfortable moving than standing still in the drizzle. In fording streams the men often carried the children and weaker women across on their backs. ... At night, when the handcarts were drawn up in a circle and the fires were lighted, the camp looked quite happy. Singing, music and speeches by the leaders cheered everyone.

Later on in the journey she wrote:

Our provisions began to get low. . . . My brother John, who pushed at the back of our cart, used to tell how hungry he was all the time and how tired he got from pushing. He said he felt that if he could just sit down for a few minutes he would feel so much better. But instead, father would ask if he couldn't push a little harder. Mother was nursing the baby and could not help much, especially when the food ran short and she grew weak. When the rations were reduced father gave mother a part of his share of the food, so he was not so strong either.

Even when the rations were meager, food and trinkets were often given to approaching Indians to keep them friendly.

The years 1869 and 1870 marked a great change in the conditions endured by the immigrants. With the laying of the last tie in completion of the transcontinental railroad the arduous trek across the plains was reduced to a few days in a railroad car, and in 1870 the LDS church began to charter steamships for the Atlantic crossing which decreased the time factor and eased the travail of immigrants en route to Utah. Non-Mormons also had the option of sailing with these ships, but many continued to come to America as steerage passengers in older vessels well into the first two decades of the 1900s.

Leaving Nurnberg in early November 1912, one German immigrant to Utah, Alexander Schreiner, recorded these impressions of his journey: "We had a very severe crossing. It was stormy at that time of year. . . . My mother was very ill, seasick, for some five days. I think it took eight or nine days to cross the Atlantic. . . ." Earlier that year the Titanic had gone down, and this group of immigrants was traveling on the Canada, a ship about one-fifth the size of the Titanic. Schreiner continued: "We arrived in Salt Lake City on Friday and were welcomed by Latter-day Saints who had formerly lived in Nurnberg who had emigrated before, and whom we loved and were happy to see." Many such welcomes were recorded by incoming German-speakers, because it was the practice of the German organizations of the time to meet new arrivals and make them comfortable.

Between the two World Wars when another wave of Germanspeaking immigrants came to Utah, travel was less arduous, but they were not free of difficulties. After paying for their passage, they had precious little money left over; and in the new land, with a language barrier and prejudices retained from the war, they found that jobs were scarce.

Eric Heimann preceded his wife to America by a number of years. Though they had met in Berlin before he left for the United States, he had received his visa and had to use it before its expiration. He went to Milwaukee to his sponsor, and she remained at her home in Vienna, Austria. Quotas imposed by the U.S. Immigration Commission at the time made her immigration impossible. Soon, however, because of LDS mission assignments, they were reunited in Germany. After completing their missions they were married and returned to Milwaukee in the 1930s when the depression was at its peak. Phila Heimann, who had nearly completed her doctorate in nuclear physics in Vienna, obtained a job teaching German to the children of some of the wealthiest brewers in the city, including the Pabst children. However, new mission duties sent them to Illinois and from there to Salt Lake City, at her insistence. They were so poor that they were unable to rent a room. Through some of their German contacts they were able to find jobs, and not long thereafter Phila began teaching German at the University of Utah. A number of today's leading professors at Brigham Young University, Utah State University, and the University of Utah were her students. Eric became a leader in many of the German organizations, and together the Heimanns sponsored five other German and Austrian families in their immigration to Utah after World War II.

The most recent wave of immigration began soon after World War II ended, but it did not really gain steam until the United States relaxed the immigration restrictions enacted to prevent the mass migration of thousands of homeless Europeans. The stories these immigrants to Utah tell are many and varied, and as with the other waves of direct immigration to the state, this one was composed almost exclusively of Mormons, among whom were tremendous numbers of East German refugees.

Several factors must be kept in mind when considering immigration during this period. (1) The history of the LDS mission effort in what is now East Germany shows that the greatest number of converts was made in this region. (2) Beginning in the late 1920s a large-scale propaganda campaign was carried out by the German government against the terror of the Bolsheviks. (3) At the end of World War II Russian soldiers literally expelled German residents who had not fled before their occupational forces in East Prussia and areas of Poland and Czechoslovakia, in part substantiating the fear created by the propaganda. These factors, combined with the severe economic upheaval brought on in part by the heavy bombing of Germany, turned many a German's eyes toward America, the land of promise, and the eyes of the Mormon Germans to Utah, their "Zion." Notwithstanding the church's stated wish that members stay in Europe and strengthen their congregations, as soon as sponsors could be found in America and as soon as money for emigration could be collected, hundreds began their journey to Utah.

One immigrant told of being forced from her home in Tilsit, East Prussia, in 1944 and walking or riding in a cattle car with her mother and baby sister through Poland to Dresden where her sister died. She spent much of her childhood in East Germany but fled with her family through Berlin to West Germany in August 1961, just two weeks before the wall was erected. After a year in southern Germany she and her mother, with the sponsorship of a family in Salt Lake City, were able to emigrate.

The journal of Herbert W. Klopfer, born February 3, 1936, related a similar story of occupation and escape. His father, a leader in the Mormon church organization in eastern Germany before the war, had been killed in Russia, leaving his wife with two children. Following an elaborate plan devised by his mother and President William Stover of the East German LDS Mission, Herbert and his younger brother, Rudy, on the pretense of joining an aunt in Rostock near the Baltic Sea, met their mother in the Russian sector of Berlin on December 26, 1950:

. . . Since there was no legal border in existence at that time, our illegal entry was tantamount to crossing a tentative line separating East Berlin from West Berlin.

President Stover had driven his big American car across the line into East Berlin to meet us at the train station. He parked it in a nearby dark side street. It was legal for him to do so as an American citizen. It was a little difficult for him, though, to chauffeur East German citizens to West Berlin. He also risked his life.

I brought aunt Maria's bicycle along with me. Upon disembarking from the train, mother put me on the bicycle, pointed west on the main east-west artery of Berlin . . . and told me to start pedaling. Alone and without any belongings other than the clothes I wore I started bicycling into the dark night, heading west, while mother and Rudy disappeared quickly with President Stover in the direction of his car.

I reached the Brandenburger Gate, the single most critical moment of my illegal flight. Border guards searched everyone thoroughly. They found nothing on me — a mere fourteen-year-old boy on a bicycle. I continued biking through the Gate to freedom. Two hours later, tired and weary, I arrived at the Mission Home in Berlin- Dahlheim, our prearranged rendezvous point.

From there, the Klopfers were able to make it to America and then to Salt Lake City.

Alfred Schulz had come to America in 1926 to join his parents and brothers already living in Salt Lake City and was followed by his wife. But in 1931, after having two children, they returned to visit his in-laws. Germany was in the midst of dark times, and it would be many years before the Schulz family would return to Utah. Alfred obtained a job as an insurance salesman and eventually became a member of a civilian police force during the war. Returning to Utah was one of his dreams, but he would have to endure much in order to get there. On an April night in 1944 Schulz and a group of other refugees were caught trying to outrun Russian soldiers pushing into Berlin. Shots were fired and all of the party were killed except Schulz who was shot through the neck and lay for six days in a field on the outskirts of a forest "with two smashed vertebrae and suffering paralysis of his lower body." Upon discovery, he was nursed back to partial health and then thrown into a Russian concentration camp where he suffered horrible mistreatment. After obtaining the proper papers from the Allied Occupational Forces, he was notified he would be able to leave from Hamburg on October 7, 1949, for the United States on a Norwegian freighter.

His first crossing to America had been in relative luxury on a large steamship. Even though he had traveled second class, he spoke of dances and parties and sumptuous meals. Of his second he wrote:

In the evening the anchor was raised, and we went through the harbor, where many ships were anchored, towards the future. . . . The trip across the ocean was not too pleasant. We had storm almost constantly. . . . The food was good, entertainment bad, boredom unending. There was little to read and it was uncomfortable on deck. . . . Thus we were on the water for almost two weeks. . . . One night the boat only made 4 knots an hour. Then we saw land. America! In the evening we were in the harbor. The anchor was lowered, and we remained on board one more night. The immigration officials came in the morning. Everything was fine. At noon the boat was tied down on the pier. Now we got off the boat and stood on the American continent. A strange feeling. It was on a Saturday. The express company was closed so that I had to stay in New York for three days. . . . With the "Greyhound Lines" I left New York on Monday evening. It was a glorious experience to take a bus through America. . . . Thursday noon we arrived in Salt Lake City . . . and then I met my parents, my boys my brothers and sisters. O what a joy to see them all again.

He got a job at ZCMI working for 85 cents an hour doing the "dirtiest" work, and his rooms were small, but his words expressed his happiness at returning to Utah and being reunited with his family: "It was good to see all the bright lights in the city. My heart was filled with joy and gratitude."

Those who have come to Utah in the past few years have found the trip quite pleasant. The ease and comfort of airline travel with snacks, drinks, hot meals, stewards and stewardesses, and in-flight movies have made the journey commonplace. The first direct German immigrants to Utah would be astonished to hear people today complain about the uneasiness of flight, the few hours of layovers, and the cramped quarters of a jumbo jet.

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