Viereck, George Sylvester b. December 31, 1884; Munich, Bavaria d. March 1, 1962; Hadley, Massachusetts
As a newspaperman, poet, and political activist, Viereck ranks as America’s most prominent and notorious defender of the reputation and the policies of imperial Germany and of the Third Reich in the first half of the twentieth century.
During both world wars, Viereck assumed a leading position in the German American community while acting on behalf of the respective German governments to propagate a pro-German viewpoint to the American public. In both instances, he was accused of conspiring to undermine the American war effort. Viereck’s checkered career, as well as his extensive writings, highlight the ambivalence that lies at the foundation of immigrant life in general and the fragility of German American integration in times of nationalist fervor and crisis.Viereck’s father, Louis Viereck, emigrated to the United States in 1896 after an uneven political career. As a member of the Social Democratic Party, he was first elected to the Reichstag and later imprisoned during Otto von Bismarck’s anti-Socialist crusade. His mother, American-born Laura Viereck, was the daughter of a revolutionary who had been forced to leave Germany after the failed uprising of 1848 and 1849. Due to his father’s travails, Sylvester, as he preferred to be addressed, had a childhood marked by economic hardship and familial instability. In 1896, soon after his arrival in New York, Sylvester was able to place a few of his poems with various German-language newspapers on the East Coast. Later on, while studying at City College, Viereck continued to write and embarked on a parallel career as a journalist, often collaborating with his father.
Viereck’s first collection of poetry in the English language (translated from German originals), Nineveh and Other Poems, was published in 1908 and received wide critical acclaim for its brash narcissism and sexual content.
Hailed by some as a Wunderkind, Viereck cultivated the public persona of the dandy and provocateur, emulating his idol Oscar Wilde. Although less successful, a second collection entitled The Candle and the Flame (1912) showed a similar antipuritanical thrust, offering a celebration of the many forms of love. Viereck’s poetry bore the influence of the European decadents and their predilection for the exotic, perverse, and amoral aspects of experience. Following a trip to Germany, Viereck wrote Confessions of a Barbarian (1910), which he dedicated to his father and to Germany. The book became a best-seller in spite of its critical stance toward the American way of life and its praise of Wilhelm II and German cultural supremacy.When his parents moved back to Germany in 1911, Viereck decided to stay in New York and assumed the editorship of his father’s magazine Der deutsche Vorkampfer (The German Pioneer). He increasingly involved himself in German American affairs. The outbreak of hostilities in Europe in August 1914 provided Viereck with an opportunity to act as spokesperson for the German American community. A week after the German invasion of Belgium, he brought forth the weekly The Fatherland and dedicated himself to presenting the German point of view and to exposing the distortions of the American press. Throughout the war, Viereck’s newspaper, later renamed The American Weekly, argued for American neutrality and attacked Woodrow Wilson as beholden to British interests. At the same time, Viereck claimed to maintain a fundamental commitment to America. In 1915, The New World alleged that Viereck was working with a propaganda cabinet set up in New York by German agents and receiving considerable sums of money from Berlin. An investigation by the Justice Department failed to produce enough evidence to charge him formally as a foreign agent. After the United States entered the war in April 1917, Viereck continued to avoid condemning Germany and dwelt instead on the injustices suffered by German American citizens.
His activities drew the contempt of many American intellectuals and publishers, and he was expelled from the Author’s League and the Poetry Society of America. By the end of the war, Viereck had lost his readership due to the virtual collapse of the German American community as a political force, but he pressed on in his pro-German fight, attacking Wilson’s peace initiatives and protesting against the Versailles Treaty. Viereck became one of the founding members of the Steuben Society, which championed the civil rights of German Americans, and he supported several relief funds to aid the poor in Germany.During the 1920s, Viereck gradually resurrected his career, writing sensational, anti-Communist articles for the Hearst papers and the Saturday Evening Post. In My Flesh and Blood: A Lyric Autobiography with Indiscreet Annotations (1931), Viereck portrayed himself as a poet of historical stature and asserted that his earlier political activity had been an unfortunate digression from his artistic endeavors. But he once again took pains to advance the German perspective in the 1930s, acting as a public relations consultant and propagandist for the National Socialist regime. He assisted in the publication of the German-American Economic Bulletin, a venture designed to encourage trade between the two countries and funded by the German Foreign Ministry. Viereck admired Adolf Hitler, whom he had interviewed as early as 1923, as a strong leader and heir apparent to the emperor. Convinced of the existence of a Jewish Communist conspiracy, Viereck would not denounce the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews in public. As relations between the Third Reich and the United States deteriorated, Viereck again came out in favor of American neutrality and isolation. From March 1942 to March 1943 and again from July 1943 to May 1947 he was imprisoned on charges of disloyalty and conspiracy to undermine the morale of the armed forces. With his reputation ruined beyond repair, Viereck resumed his literary career. In several books he revealed himself to be unrepentant and increasingly pessimistic. While he strove to justify both his passionate amorality and his pro-German legacy, he also expressed dismay over the decline of Western civilization.
Cornelius Partsch
See also Bismarck’s Anti-Socialist Law; Steuben Society of America; Treaty of Versailles; World War I;, World War I and German Americans
References and Further Reading
Gertz, Elmer. Odyssey of a Barbarian. The Biography of George Sylvester Viereck. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1978.
Johnson, Niel M. George Sylvester Viereck. German-American Propagandist. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1972.
Keller, Phyllis. States of Belonging. German- American Intellectuals and the First World War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1979.