Verein
Ubiquitous in the history of German America is the Verein (literally, “unit”); that generic term that combines so frequently with cultural prefixes as to make it universal. Thus, the word means not just a club or a social unit, but often a cultural, artistic, political, religious, gymnastic, or any other type of organization as the imagination allows.
Words combine variously, such as Gesangverein (singing society), Kunst- verein (arts association), Turnverein (sports gymnastic or physical fitness club)—often to include their purpose. Thus, many mutual aid or support societies care for members or others through so-called Unter- stutzungsvereine (support groups) that have included mutual insurance associations and even the first savings and loan companies that once pervaded German settlements in America. In this category are such organizations as the St. Raphaelsverein located in New York to offer assistance to newly arriving German immigrants.Sometimes a Verein was a huge organization, such as Deutscher Kirchenverein des Westens (German Evangelical Syndicate of the West), or the German Catholic Central-Verein, a powerful organ of the German Catholic Church in the United States that published the Central-Blatt and Social Justice in St. Louis. The term Verein also appeared regularly in the titles of sodalities, youth organizations, and pastoral care societies that pervaded the whole of German American life—not just in America but back in Germany as well. Frequently the name of a saint was incorporated in the title, as in Cacilien-Verein (St. Cecilia club), implying here that this was a church choir. Equally numerous were the school societies, some geared to school children who learned in German, others to raise financial support for private and parochial schools, such as those that were mandated by the Third Council of Baltimore in 1884.
In the same vein, the dramatischer Verein or Theater-Verein, such groups as the Schiller-Verein, Schubert-Verein, or Beethoven- Verein, and a plethora of similar organizations were cultural units existing for specific purposes that served the German American community. In the more political arena back in Germany was the Nationalverein fur deutsche Auswan- derung (The National Society for the Promotion of German Emigration), which had surprising success around the 1850s in encouraging Germans to seek new homes in the United States. This organization functioned as a clearinghouse for information about life in the United States, operated a Darmstaedt bookstore with materials about emigration, facilitated financial arrangements, and helped out if legal problems arose. Often these societies extended assistance through their counterparts in North America. Thus the Verein held its own as a rather respected entity that benefited ordinary people in line with the society’s mission statement. Princes and dukes in Germany found a ready relief valve for their social problems and the United States usually benefited by receiving an adequate labor supply and enterprising new farmers.
Although German military organizations generally referred to their troop assemblies with the word Einheit (active duty military unit), veterans’ groups often took the suffix word Verein to distinguish themselves from those still active and to imply a social dimension to the organization’s purpose; hence, Krieger-Verein (war veterans’ society). Here, too, many combinations of veteran societies arose, many of which employed some other word to indicate a mutual support organization of a very specific sort. Such an organ as the Steuben-Verein in one instance was used to raise money for the monument to Frederick von Steuben that now stands in Lafayette Park across from the White House. In another, it was used to honor German Americans by means of identification with a prominent and respected German immigrant.
The Steuben Society still stages its parade down the streets of New York annually in late September. Appearing at such events are dozens of varying Verein-titled groups. Organizations with names such as Verein deutscher Trachten (native costume club), Schuhplattler-Verein (Bavarian shoe-slapping dancers), Verein deutscher Sprache (German language club), and even such college support groups as the Verein zur Forderung der Universitat Princeton (Society for the Financial Support of the University of Princeton) are likely to join in the Steuben parade. As might be expected, the Canstatter Volksfest Verein, the Pennsylvania Bayrischer Volksfest Verein, and many others are in attendance at the annual Steuben parade.Schutzenvereine (protection societies), which started out in Germany as a way to secure mutual physical protection such as that offered by national guard organizations or even neighborhood watch groups, are in the early twenty-first century mostly social clubs. Various Donau-Schwaben Vereine (Danube-Swabian societies) celebrate and support post—World War II immigrants from the Danube region of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. The settlements there originated during the reign of Maria Theresia in the 1770s and 1780s. The settlers lived in German-speaking enclaves until the end of World War II, when according to the July 1945 Potsdam Agreement, they were expelled. Qualifying as displaced persons, the Danube Swabians immigrated in large numbers to the United States. In 2005, therefore, a host of Vereine in the American setting serve these Danube Swabian immigrants and their descendents, not only in big cities like greater New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but also in smaller communities such as Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. A Schwabischer Mannerchor Verein (Swabian Men’s Chorus Club) exists in Fraser, Michigan. Mention should also be made of the Vereine that sought commonality among those of German ethnicity who were never citizens of Germany but who clung nevertheless to their German heritage.
Such Vereine include, for instance, the Carpathian Verein, named after the Carpathian Mountains in southern Poland and eastern Slovakia, sometimes extending to include also the region once known as Bukovina and thus resulting in titles like the Buchenland Vereine. Also prominent are such organizations as the Siebenburger Sachsen Vereine, which stem from the German settlements in Romania that date from the 1200s to the 1400s. There are also Vereine for the German groups from Russia, notably in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas. Sometimes the latter are divided further along the lines of their geographical origin, such as the Black Sea Germans or the Volga Germans. There are even Vereine for more minute subgroups, like the Bessarabian, the Gluckstal, the Kherson, or the Volhynia Germans.Not to be forgotten are those religious Vereine that had as their mission mutual support among laypeople. Strong within this category are the Catholic Kolping Societies, which were founded in honor of the Cologne priest Adolph Kolping (1813— 1865), to promote piety among individuals and families. A worldwide organization, the Kolping chapters in the United States are located primarily close to either coast, in the East in New York, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, and in the West in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Motivated by a different mission is the Protestanten- verein, which began in Germany in 1863 to achieve unity among the various nonCatholic denominations.
The term Verein has a very positive connotation for some kind of community with almost any identifiable purpose. Cutting across all aspects of group living, it is the word that brings together, communal- izes, and supports its membership of individuals. In that sense, the word is accurate, it “unifies.” The prefix ver- implies action, and thus the Verein is an active coming together into one.
LaVern J. Rippley
See also German Catholic Central-Verein; Kenkel, Frederick P.; St. Raphael’s zum Schutze Katholischer deutscher; Association for the Protection of German Catholic Emigrants; Steuben Society of America
References and Further Reading
Gleason, Philip. The Conservative Reformers: German-American Catholics and the Social Order. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1968.
Levine, Bruce C. The Spirit of1848: German Immigrants, Labor Conflict and the Coming of the Civil War. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois, 1992.
Wittke, Carl. Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1970.