Culture and Politics
The Germans settling in Nebraska came from many different backgrounds, some from northern Germany who were Lutheran Christians, others especially from the southern parts were Catholics, and yet others were not particularly religious. Many of them were from rural areas and “predominantly lower middle class, farmers, craftsman, and shopkeepers.”[6]  Americans in Nebraska would characterize the German immigrants as “ill-suited for the rigors of frontier life and were addicted to the amenities of civilization.”[7]  Yet, this was largely not true. German immigrants moved onto land previously inhabited by Native Americans and perhaps other European settlers “to improve it, using superior farming, methods, and a stubborn, unyielding determination, to succeed.”[8] German immigrants showed a lot of persistence and due to their cultural beliefs, they were able to overcome the hardships of the frontier, especially when it came to the pressures of American society and land ownership. In European culture, to have land was to have power and would give the individual more autonomy. For the Germans, land gave them status, improving their social and economic standing. By having this land, you could employ day-laborers to work on the land, often working for little pay while the landowner made a large profit.[9]

Despite the social and economic progress that many German immigrants and their succeeding generations achieved, many also experienced cultural discrimination in the years and decades preceding WWI. Many of the cultural material and values that gave them status and self-respect in Europe no longer applied. “Instead, these things became sources of humiliation,” writes Frederick Luebke. “The clothes, their mannerisms, and his speech – all of which were manifestations of his self-image and personality” became subject to derision within normative American culture.[10]
In part as an attempt to defend their culture, some German Americans were active in politics. In addition to being heavily involved in issues of the day such as Prohibition and women’s suffrage, much of their political activity related to promoting and preserving their language and cultural practices. The National German-American Alliance was founded in 1901 to combat these perceived threats and to unify the German political voice. In 1910, Nebraska German Americans formed their own chapter of the Alliance and created social festivals and clubs to organize their political agitations. In fact, the Nebraska chapter claimed an important victory prior to WWI. With help from the University of Nebraska foreign language department, the Alliance was able to get the Mockett Law passed in 1913. This law required one period per day to be devoted to foreign language instruction if parents or guardians of at least fifty students above the fourth grade requested it.[11] By the dawning of the Great War, German Americans in Nebraska could claim a robust cultural and political presence throughout the state.

Anti-German Sentiment and World War I
In the years leading up to United States entering WWI, there had not been overwhelming support. Most of the population saw this as a European war that had no direct involvement with the United States.[12] President Woodrow Wilson changed that using extreme nationalism and scare tactics to force the public into the war. In his 1915 State of the Union address, President Woodrow Wilson stated that “there are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags, but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws, to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of the national life…. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out.”[13] This directly targeted Americans that had emigrated from another country, specifically Germans.
Back in Nebraska the conflict between the wave of nationalism and its detractors is depicted in an April 11, 1917 article in the University newspaper The Daily Nebraskan. Entitled “Protests Against Widespread War,” the article shares that ninety-nine faculty members of the University sent a petition to President Wilson and the Nebraska congressional delegation to protest against “aggressive participation by this nation in the European wars.” The petition was a response to an earlier faculty petition which denounced “pacifism as ‘dangerous’ at such a time.”[14] The United States Congress had just voted to enter the war on April 6, 1917, and ultimately the nationalistic voices dominated public opinion nationally and statewide. The Nebraska University Patriotic League, Faculty Division was created soon after the United States joined the war and pushed radical views of citizenship and patriotism on campus. These radical views included how “there is no German-American, Americans don’t wear masks” and that you either are an American or not because there was no in between.[15]

Anti-German Sentiment and World War I
In the years leading up to United States entering WWI, there had not been overwhelming support. Most of the population saw this as a European war that had no direct involvement with the United States.[16] President Woodrow Wilson changed that using extreme nationalism and scare tactics to force the public into the war. In his 1915 State of the Union address, President Woodrow Wilson stated that “there are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags, but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws, to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of the national life…. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out.”[17] This directly targeted Americans that had emigrated from another country, specifically Germans.
Back in Nebraska the conflict between the wave of nationalism and its detractors is depicted in an April 11, 1917 article in the University newspaper The Daily Nebraskan. Entitled “Protests Against Widespread War,” the article shares that ninety-nine faculty members of the University sent a petition to President Wilson and the Nebraska congressional delegation to protest against “aggressive participation by this nation in the European wars.” The petition was a response to an earlier faculty petition which denounced “pacifism as ‘dangerous’ at such a time.”[18] The United States Congress had just voted to enter the war on April 6, 1917, and ultimately the nationalistic voices dominated public opinion nationally and statewide. The Nebraska University Patriotic League, Faculty Division was created soon after the United States joined the war and pushed radical views of citizenship and patriotism on campus. These radical views included how “there is no German-American, Americans don’t wear masks” and that you either are an American or not because there was no in between.[19]

The Professors’ Trial of 1918
Such was the political climate within Nebraska and on campus which enabled a unique attack upon free speech and German-Americans in particular. Over 6,000 Americans were sentenced to prison terms during WWI for being “critical of the president, the administration, the war, the armed forces, or at times even the Red Cross.”[20] This sweeping attack upon First Amendment rights included University of Nebraska targets, culminating in the so-called Professors’ Trial of 1918. On May 28, 1918, eleven professors and one staff member were put on trial for disloyalty. The Nebraska State Council of Defense pressured the Board of Regents to charge these University employees, led by Councilmember and editor of the Omaha Nebraskan, Richard L. Metcalfe. Metcalfe developed a clear bias against the German American population in Nebraska and even went as far as blaming them for his defeat in a 1914 run for governor.[21]

Shortly after the U.S. Declaration of War was signed in April 1917, Metcalfe was appointed to the Secret Service Committee of the State Council. Originally designed to help each state coordinate war efforts, the State Council of Defense in Nebraska immediately saw other ways to help coordinate and advance the war effort.  Metcalfe wrote a report that highlighted the disloyalty in Nebraska, identifying the main culprits as “the German-American population” and “the State University of Nebraska.”[22] The report stated that “several professors of the state university have so persistently given encouragement, publicly and privately, to those who are out of harmony with the American cause” that “the Nebraska State council of defense intends, to employ its power and authority to the limit in the effort to suppressed in Nebraska any interference with the determination to push the war to a speedy and successful conclusion.”[23] This same rhetoric echoes from totalitarian governments, making it clear that if anything or anyone is not one hundred percent American then the Counsel will come after you.

Taking place in the law building on campus, the Professors’ Trial was a fight between First Amendment rights and allegations of disloyalty. The Regents opted for a public trial where “anyone could bring any charge against any university employee.”[24] This extraordinary situation led to four more professors being charged for disloyalty, totaling sixteen university employees. The defense argued that freedom of speech and academic freedom allows them to teach German culture and language as well as be critical of U.S. policy. The prosecution portrayed the defendants as subversive, because the professors were undermining the war effort with their criticisms. Each defendant ended up being tried separately based on their specific allegations. By the end of the trials, Agronomy Professor Erwin P. Hopt was fired for being a pacifist, and two other professors were fired not for disloyalty, but because the Regents determined “they were no longer useful to the university.”[25] To this day, the University of Nebraska holds, in the words of Frank Edler, “the dubious distinction of being the only university in the United States” to have put so many of its own faculty and staff on trial for exercising their freedoms of speech and academics.[26] Overall, this trial brought to light the extreme views of nationalism and Americanism that ran through the government during WWI.

Conclusion
The culmination of anti-German sentiment in the United States before and during World War 1 had dramatic repercussions, even places far from the front lines such as Nebraska. President Wilsons’s inciting words about hyphenated Americans inflamed an already contentious atmosphere, and many began labeling German Americans as political threats to the nation. The University of Nebraska became a battleground between unquestioning patriotism and freedoms promised to American citizens. The Professors’ Trial of 1918 embodied the essence of this period as professors and staff were accused of being disloyal to the United States just because they taught German or had different feelings about the war. The climate of fear stretched into every aspect of life, from school to everyday interactions, leaving a significant impact on the German American community in Nebraska as well as the University of Nebraska.