 |
Remarks by John P. Schmitz
German-American Day Celebration
Heurich Mansion - Washington, D.C.
Saturday - October 6th, 2002
Thank you very much Frederick Hess for your kind remarks, and thank you
Christa Garcia for inviting me to speak tonight as we celebrate a very
special day, German-American Day. I am deeply honored to have this opportunity
once again to address the distinguished German-American community, guests,
and special friends. I want to thank all of the German-American leaders
who have made this day possible – Holger Apfelbaum, President of
the Steuben Society and this year’s Chairman of the German American
Joint Action Committee, Al Wurz and my old friend Helmut Krueger from
Philadelphia, Christa Garcia, President of DANK and Dr. Don Heinrich Tolzmann
from Cincinnati, who was honored last night, and to whom we are all indebted
for his histories of the German-American experience. I also want to thank
Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger: a long-time friend from our days in the
Aspen Berlin Young Leaders Program. I think it’s safe to say that
Wolfgang has one of the hardest jobs in Washington right now, but there
is no one more capable, and we applaud your tireless efforts on behalf
of the U.S.-German relationship.
Today, we are celebrating our shared German-American heritage, which includes
our immigrant ancestors from what is now Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.
And we celebrate the tremendous contributions of German-Americans to this
great country, the United States of America. As many of you know, family
has always been the most important part of my life and my German American
heritage is deeply rooted in my family. I consider the German-American
community to be my extended family, so it is particularly nice to see
so many long time friends who share a common bond.
My wife Joan is here tonight, as well as four of our five children. Let
me just briefly introduce them by their baptized names: Maria Theresia,
John Matthias Früh, Christopher Maximilian, Julia Margaret Bushnell,
and Anna Elisabeth Wilhelmina, who is away at college studying German
and international relations.
It is customary at our annual German-American day celebration to remember
and honor the great German-Americans of history and their contributions
to building our nation and the values we hold dear. President George W.
Bush set just the right tone in his thoughtful Proclamation today: “Through
hard work, innovation and dedication they have influenced our Nation and
strengthened our Country.”
I want to focus tonight on our most well-known German-American heroes
– Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Muehlenberg family and Carl
Schurz – and two modern German-American legends – Dr. Günther
Blobel and the late Heinz Prechter. I want to use their inspiring lives
and accomplishments to explore three of the most important and cherished
of our American values: Freedom (“Freiheit”), respect for
the dignity of man (“Menschenwürde”), and the powerful
engine of American optimism (“Der Amerikanische Traum”). Each
of these values has long and healthy German-American roots. This will
bring us up to the present – to the times in which we live and help
us see more clearly what our calling is as a German-American community.
I don’t need to tell this audience about Baron Friedrich Wilhelm
von Steuben. Baron von Steuben was present at the birth of our country,
one of General Washington’s most trusted aides, and very much a
founding father of our country through his contributions as Inspector
General of the American Continental Army. His statue stands in front of
the White House in Lafayette Park to remind all Americans that without
the selfless devotion of those who fought and died, there would never
have been an America, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Benjamin
Franklin recruited Baron von Steuben to help turn an undisciplined and
bedraggled Army at Valley Forge into a disciplined fighting force, capable
of winning the fight for freedom. As Dr. Tolzmann records in his book,
“The German-American Experience.”
“Von Steuben [who served under Frederick the Great], accustomed
to Prussian discipline, was quite impatient with the laxity, the irregularities,
and the inefficiency of the American troops. He insisted on meticulous
attention to all details, and when his anger was roused, he swore in French
and German. After he had exhausted those languages, he would turn to an
officer with the plea, ‘My dear Jones, swear for me in English!’
The good results of his work were soon evident.”
The early German-Americans, though only 9% of the population, were overwhelmingly
freedom loving and patriotic. Many of them, including Daniel Pastorius,
were men of faith seeking religious freedom. The Muehlenberg family of
Pennsylvania and Virginia gave us several Revolutionary heroes. Heinrich
Melchior Muehlenberg founded the Lutheran Church of America. His son,
Peter, pastor of the Lutheran Church in Woodstock, VA, was a friend of
Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson believed that “the
tree of liberty must be refreshed from time-to-time with the blood of
patriots and tyrants”. And Peter Muehlenberg, in his last sermon
in 1776, said, “There is a time for preaching and praying, but also
a time for battle and that time has now arrived.” At Patrick Henry’s
urging, Peter Muehlenberg took command of the Eighth Virginia Regiment
and served with distinction at Brandywine, Germantown, and Yorktown. The
second Muehlenberg son, Frederick, presided over the Pennsylvania Convention
that ratified our Constitution. He was elected to the first Congress and
became the first Speaker of the House of Representatives. He also was
an original signer of the Bill of Rights. The Muehlenbergs were true patriots
and founding fathers.
When we talk about American values and “shared values” we
begin with faith and freedom. Freedom to worship, freedom of ideas and
expression, freedom of markets and commerce, freedom for citizens to shape
their lives and their destinies. Individual freedom is indeed the cornerstone
of our society. Liberty is an eternal value.
As frontiersmen, pioneers, settlers, pastors, educators, businessmen and
political leaders, German-Americans helped build America, making the Land
of Liberty a reality.
I cannot, tonight, go through the countless number of German-Americans
from every generation who have contributed to the building of this great
nation, so let me turn now to one of the best known, and one of the most
personally inspiring German-Americans, Carl Schurz.
As many of you know, Carl Schurz was a statesman, a general, a diplomat,
a U.S. Senator, a reformer and a conservationist. He was a Renaissance
man whose bio reads larger than life. He was born near Cologne and emigrated
to the United States in the aftermath of the revolutionary upheaval of
1848. He was an “1848er,” and carried the burning desire for
freedom and respect for human dignity with him from the Old World. He
was an ardent and effective advocate against slavery and served as one
of President Abraham Lincoln’s most trusted advisors. He served
his country as a General in the Civil War, fighting for freedom and the
dignity of all human beings. He was an effective orator, drawing large
crowds in the cities of the East as well as in the rural Midwest, and
quickly became the political voice of German-Americans. He was elected
Republican Senator from Missouri in 1869, and served President Rutherford
B. Hayes as Secretary of the Interior. But for me, more importantly, he
was a model of integrity in a political world and a strong force for reform
in this country until he died in 1906. Listen to his own words after being
elected U.S. Senator from Missouri:
“And now I was a member of the highest legislative body of the greatest
Republic: Would I ever be able to repay my debt of gratitude to this country
and justify all the honors heaped upon me? To achieve this, my sense of
duty could not be set high enough. Deep in my heart I solemnly swore at
least to make a sincere effort to fulfill my obligation to observe the
principle of ‘salus populi suprema lex’; never to resort to
base flattery when dealing with powerful individuals or with the masses;
to stand alone, when necessary, in defense of my ideas of truth and justice;
and to let no personal sacrifice stand in the way of my devotion to the
Republic.”
In other words, he never compromised his integrity or his devotion to
principle. Devotion to principle was not always politically convenient
and Schurz was tested more than once. Although a prominent member of President
Hayes’ Cabinet, he swung his support to Democratic Presidential
Candidate Grover Cleveland, because the Republicans had temporarily lost
their commitment to Civil Service reform. Schurz led that reform effort,
believing as most German-Americans do, that government service is a high
honor and should be based on qualifications and character, not on politics
or party affiliation. Schurz confirmed his reputation as a man of principle
and independence when he later reestablished his support for the Republican
Party, and led German-Americans to become a key political constituency
of Republican reform efforts right up to the turn of the century.
By the way, Carl Schurz also married a great German-American, Margarethe
Mayer Schurz, who established, in Watertown, Wisconsin, America’s
first Kindergarten.
Von Steuben, Muehlenberg and Schurz have inspired many German-Americans
living today, and I have been privileged to work with some of them. Inspirational
people of German-American heritage continue to thrive today, blessing
our country with their talents. I'd like to recognize some of them from
different walks of life who have inspired me and so many others.
In 1999, Dr. Günther Blobel, Professor of Cell Biology at Rockefeller
University earned the Nobel Prize for his path breaking work on how proteins
are transported through cell membranes. Dr. Blobel, whose devotion to
his home town of Dresden is well known, donated his Nobel Prize worth
about $1 million to the Friends of Dresden, an organization of Americans
based in New York, which is helping to rebuild the Frauenkirche in Dresden.
The city of Dresden, then known as the Florence on the Elbe, flourished
in an atmosphere of tolerance under August the Strong during the late
17th and the 18th centuries. August the Strong, who had converted to Catholicism,
built the Frauenkirche, the largest Lutheran cathedral in the world, as
a promise of tolerance and plurality to the people of Saxony. Today, just
as in the 18th century, the Frauenkirche is a unique symbol of freedom,
respect, tolerance and plurality of government. The rebuilding of the
Frauenkirche, and the active involvement of German-Americans like Dr.
Blobel and many others, show how fundamental these values are to German-Americans
today. We share these fundamental values with our friends in Germany,
and the Frauenkirche is a visible symbol of those shared values.
The late Heinz Prechter was a trained mechanic from Bavaria who built
a business empire in the U.S. manufacturing car sunroofs. His inspiring
life story reads as the true American dream in the land of opportunity.
Heinz’ entrepreneurial spirit and strong belief in personal responsibility
made him one of the most successful businessmen of our times. His personal
dream was to start the first U.S.-based privately financed exchange program
for young German and American professionals. He was so thankful for his
success in the U.S. and wanted to encourage other young people to build
bridges between the two countries he held dear in his heart. After Heinz’
life dreams were cut short tragically by his death last year, his wife
Wally carries on the Prechter tradition of generosity and public service
in her crusade to raise awareness and financial support for understanding
and curing mental illness.
Heinz and I were privileged to work with President Bush at a critical
point in history. It was thirteen years ago on November 9th when the world
celebrated one of the greatest triumphs ever of freedom and human dignity
– the fall of the Berlin Wall that had divided Germany and Europe
with concrete, barbed wire and watchtowers. The fall of the Wall marked
the end of the Cold War and Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. It also
began the process of rebuilding Europe and securing the blessings of economic
freedom and democracy for the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.
During those exciting times, I was working as Deputy White House Counsel
to President George Bush. That’s the first President Bush. In 1983,
Vice President George Bush visited Krefeld to celebrate the 300th anniversary
of Pastorius’ trip to Philadelphia. President Bush knew of my German-American
experiences and interests and asked me to be the White House liaison with
the German-American community. These were the years when I worked very
closely with Helmut Krueger and Elsbeth Seewald, past President of DANK,
who could not be here tonight. Let me offer my personal thanks to Elsbeth
for many years of distinguished German-American leadership. Together we
helped build domestic U.S. political support for President Bush’s
foreign policy on German unification. And together with Dr. Tolzmann,
Helmut Krueger, former Ambassador Juergen Ruhfus, former Austrian Ambassador
Friedrich Hoess, Dr. Reinhard Schweppe, and many others, German-American
Day was celebrated at the White House.
These were truly moving times. I will not forget the chills I felt when
President Bush said that we were living in a rare period of history, a
period of transition between two historical epochs. For we were witnessing
not only the end of the Cold War, but the end of World War I, a war which
had destroyed the world of my grandmother’s youth, a world that
had been so full of optimism and promise. Hope and optimism were very
much present in 1989, as we all faced the challenges of reuniting and
rebuilding Germany and Europe. Looking forward, it seemed that we were
within reach of a vision of Europe truly whole and free, where the rule
of law would displace the destructive nationalism of the preceding century
as the architecture of the new order.
Not all of us can be Carl Schurz’, Gunther Blobels or Heinz Prechters.
But these role models shape our aspirations as German-Americans to make
our own contributions, and to advance our values and ideas.
I believe that one of the most important contributions we can make to
our community as forward-looking German-Americans is to engage our youth
even more than we have in the past. We should all be inspired to work
hard to reverse the trend of decreasing numbers of German language students
in our schools here in the United States. Think about it -- according
to the 1990 Census 58 million of us Americans claim some German, Swiss
or Austrian ancestry. I commend the German language teachers, some of
whom are present tonight, for their continued commitment to our youth.
Language camps, like the Concordia Language Village in Minnesota run by
my friend Dan Hamilton, are an excellent opportunity for our children
and grandchildren to perfect their (and maybe our) German language skills,
and to learn to appreciate our German heritage.
One practical asset that the German-American community can benefit from
in promoting the German language among our children and grandchildren
is the recent establishment in the U.S. of German Television. I don’t
want to do a commercial for German TV in my speech, but they are here
today, as you can see, covering our German-American day celebration, and
we can supplement our children’s education by just listening to
their coverage “auf Deutsch”.
We should support exchange programs for our students to provide them with
the opportunity to learn German firsthand, and to learn about the Germany
of today. I regard my stay as a Bosch Fellow in Germany in 1984 as one
of those unique experiences which have shaped my life and perspective
on the U.S.-German relationship and my German-American heritage. Many
other exchange programs are open to our children and grandchildren, and
we should encourage them to take advantage of them as actively as the
thousands of German students do, who come to the United States every year.
These programs, and the personal relationships between Germans and Americans
that result, can be an important pillar of the U.S.-German relationship
today.
We should engage our children and grandchildren in discussions about our
heritage. But we should also talk to them about the Germany of today,
which they may read about in the newspaper, learn about in history class,
and which they may visit during a family vacation or student exchange.
We should encourage our young generation to understand the values we share
as German-Americans with our friends in Germany, and we should foster
their understanding of our shared history and friendship.
I would like to close by reminding all of us not only of how important
the German-American community has been to this country, but also how important
it can be for the U.S.-German relationship overall. Our continued commitment
to our heritage and a strong U.S.-German relationship, as well as the
involvement of our young generation in this relationship will honor all
of the great German-Americans who have contributed so much to our nation.
Thank you all very much and please enjoy the celebration tonight.
|
|
Statements & Speeches
Newsletters
 Printer-Friendly
Page
Email This Article |
|
|
