German-American Israelites?
Nicholas Kumanoff’s “Born German, Made American” in The Atlantic Times reveals how “to demonstrate their patriotism, immigrants abandoned their old identities.” After “virulent anti-German sentiment” spread to several states, German classes were banned at school, German books were burned in the streets, sausages turned into hot dogs and sauerkraut turned into “cabbage. of freedom”.
Anyone with a German name was a suspect and was subject to harassment. The American Defense Society announced that a German-American, “unless it is known from years of association that he is absolutely loyal, should be treated as a potential spy.”
This reminds me of how when I was 18 I told my grandmother Vivian Hoover that I was going to the German-American Festival. I was visiting Grandpa and Grandma (Arthur and Vivian Hoover) on our farm in Risingsun, Ohio. She said, “Why are you going? You are not German.” I said our name was German (even though it has been Anglicized). She snapped: “You are English. Your grandfather has a father of pure English heritage” and something to the effect that his family also had those English ties (and we are clearly traced back to England and Ireland, as well as Scotland in my maternal side. ). I replied that it was not necessary to be German to attend the German-American Festival anyway.
My grandfather Arthur Hoover’s mother, Hattie Mervin, was born in England. My great-great-grandfather, John Mervin, came to the United States a year before his wife and children joined him (after being shipwrecked three times on the way).
I mentioned this incident to my great-aunt, Neva Scoviac, Grandma Hoover’s sister, during a visit to her home in Hudson, Michigan, several years ago (Grandma died in 1980) and she said we are German. Grandmother and Aunt Neva’s maiden name is Ort, Pennsylvania Dutch, German. (I vaguely remember Grandma saying something about Pennsylvania Dutch a long time ago, but then I thought it just meant Dutch, not Deutsche.)
Aunt Neva served as a nurse during World War II and her brothers, my great-uncles, served in the Philippines. Aunt Neva said that after the war, especially when “we heard all the horrible stories” about what happened during the war, the Holocaust, you didn’t want to be known as German or associated with Germany. She feels that is why Grandma was so adamant that we are English.
As someone who believes in the Israelite origins of the West, the Hebrew roots of the Anglo-Saxons and the white peoples of Northwest Europe, I can see the hand of God in this dissociation from Gentile Germany. I can perceive Divine Providence playing its prophetic role in having sifted the Israelite tribes, specifically Manasseh, the son of Joseph, through Germany and separating us from those who are truly Assyrian-Germans, literally distancing us from the Germans who remained. back, taking us to this Promised Land of the United States, assuming a new identity, an American one, restoring our identity as Manasseh with our brothers – the “Lost Ten Tribes” – who emigrated from other countries where they had resided, through great works What The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy by Herbert W. Armstrong.
May God bless the United States of America, the biblical heritage of the tribe of Manasseh. And may God bless Germany to work with us (not against us) while leading the European Union.
*******
John Mervin