How did the turbulent years of the First World War and the violently anti-German sentiments that developed during that time influence and change German-Canadian identity?
While Canada was at war in Europe with Germany and her allies from 1914 to 1918, the treatment of domestic German immigrants deteriorated in some cases to the point of public hostility by native-Canadians. The reactions to this crisis by the German-born immigrant and Editor-in-chief Conrad Eymann of the German-language newspaper Der Courier from Regina, Saskatchewan, can offer valuable insight into the lives and culture of German-Canadians during these years. Eymann's correspondence with the Chief Press Censor Ernest Chambers, Police Commissioner A.B. Perry, and Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden "as well as Eymann's file recorded by the Royal North-West Mounted Police and the articles he published in Der Courier" are among the more valuable primary sources examined in this work.
In this thesis, I analyze these sources and others through a microhistorical approach in an effort to develop an understanding of German-Canadian identity that both complements and challenges the accepted grand narrative view of Canadian history. That is, the research and discoveries presented in this thesis is hoped to both complement and challenge the widely accepted grand narrative perceptions of identity development during the First World War.