In nineteenth-centuryUpper Canada,[a] German-language publications were in high demand. After theEnglish andFrench,Germans were the third-largest immigrant group in Canada.[4][b] Most Germans settled inWaterloo County, especially in the towns of Berlin (nowKitchener) andWaterloo, and most newspapers were established there to service the population.[7][c] In any year between 1859 and 1908, Waterloo County typically had four German newspapers, and always between three and five. In the period from 1835 to 1914, nine German newspapers were founded in Berlin and Waterloo and six inPreston,New Hamburg andElmira.[7] German is the only language other than English or French to have had a flourishing newspaper press in Ontario; approximately thirty German newspapers were published in the province between 1835 and 1918.[9]
Ontario's first German-language newspaper,Canada Museum und Allgemeine Zeitung, was founded in Berlin in 1835, predating the town's first English-language newspaper by 18 years.[7] German-language publications were not typically read outside of Ontario's German communities, leading them to focus their reporting on local news and interpretations foreign events. Due to their small readership, they exerted little political influence on anything other than a local level.[10] Most publication were dependent upon a small population group[11] and folded after only a few years, but the towns Berlin, Waterloo and New Hamburg each supported at least one German newspaper until 1909, by which time all competitors had either folded or amalgamated into Berlin'sBerliner Journal.[7]
On 25 September 1918, in the last weeks of theFirst World War, the Canadian government passed anOrder in Council[12] prohibiting "the publication of books, newspapers, magazines or any printed matter in the language of any country or people for the time being at war withGreat Britain."[13] The Order had the effect ofbanning German-language publications, leading to the 1918 closure of the last remaining German newspaper, theBerliner Journal (since renamed theOntario Journal).[14] Although the government repealed the order in January 1920, it was not until 1967 that another German-language newspaper appeared – theKitchener Journal, which ceased publication in 1969.[15]
In the wake of theSecond World War, a surge in immigration of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and Germany led to a small revival of Ontario's German-language newspapers.[16] Toronto'sdas journal, published from 2011 to 2023, was Ontario's last German-language newspaper.[17][18]
^Before theunification of Germany in 1871,German did not refer to the people of a singlenation state.[5] The immigrants' area of origin was often designated as "Germany" and was technically within theHoly Roman Empire, but the historian Kenneth McLaughlin writes it is "more properly defined as 'Mitteleuropa'."[6] Those who immigrated to Canada before the unification understood that their family had left an area of what became the German nation state or from an area that shared its culture and language.[5]
^Toronto wasCanada West's population centre, but it was unable to support a large German readership; its only German-language newspaper moved away after less than a year of publication.[8]
^English-language paper with a German section from February to October 1878.[21]
^HistoriansJohn English & Kenneth McLaughlin state the paper began in 1833, quoting from a 1931 Waterloo Historical Society piece to justify that dating.[26] However, the piece they quote from provides a date of 27 August 1835 for the paper's first issue.[27] Scholar Herbert Karl Kalbfleisch also writes the first issue ran on 27 August 1835.[2]
^Ceased publication in April 1875; moved to London and resumed in July 1875.[30]
^While themasthead readsDas Echo, Kalbfleisch refers to the newspaper asDas Ottawa Echo.[31]
^Moved from Toronto to Preston within its first year.[8]
^abcAfter theBerliner Journal amalgamated the newspaper, it continued to be issued under its original name so as to not upset longtime subscribers, though the actual content of the two papers was identical.[35]
^abMoved from Ayton to Neustadt and renamedDer Canadische Volksfreund in 1890.[54]
^The first mention of the newspaper is in an 1871 edition ofAlexander J. Schem'sDeutsch-Amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon.[57]
^An 1873 issue of Alexander J. Schem'sDeutsch-Amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon does not mentionDie Wespe in a list of Canadian German newspapers,[58] implying it folded before 1873.[59]
^Published as a special edition ofDer Perth Volksfreund.[45]
McKegney, Patricia P. (1991).The Kaiser's Bust: A Study of War-Time Propaganda in Berlin, Ontario, 1914–1918. Wellesley: University of Bamberg Press.ISBN0-9695356-0-0.
Monkiewicz, Agata; Skidmore, James M. (2005)."Berliner Journal". In Adam, Thomas (ed.).Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara:ABC-CLIO. pp. 137–138.ISBN1-85109-633-7.
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