German Canadians ( or , ) (Low German:Düütschkanadääsk) are Canadian citizens of German ancestry or Germans who emigrated to and reside in Canada. According to the 2021 census, there are 2,955,695 Canadians with full or partial German ancestry. Some immigrants came from what is today Germany, while larger numbers came from German settlements in Eastern Europe and Imperial Russia; others came from parts of the German Confederation, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland.

History

Historiography of Germans in Canada

In modern German, the endonym is used in reference to the German language and people. Before the modern era and especially the unification of Germany, "Germany" and "Germans" were ambiguous terms which could at times encompass peoples and territories not only in the modern state of Germany, but also modern-day Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, France, the Netherlands, and even Russia and Ukraine. For example, in the Middle Ages, the Latin term was used to refer to West Germanic languages in general, and in English, "Dutch" was sometimes used as a shorthand for any broadly Germanic people. Early Anglophone historians and contemporary travellers in Canada rarely mentioned the ethnic identity, primary language, or place of origin of early settlers at all, and even later historians in the 19th and 20th centuries were prone to using ambiguous terms such as "Pennsylvania Dutch". This term is sometimes described as a "misnomer" for Germans,

Loyalist migration

In the late 18th century, British colonies in North America were significantly affected by the outbreak and subsequent loss of the American Revolutionary War. At the time, Great Britain and its overseas empire were ruled by the German-descended King George III, who was also the Prince-Elector of Hanover, a state in what is now northwestern Germany. Thousands of soldiers fighting for the British were members of regiments hired from various small German states. These soldiers were collectively known as "Hessians", since many of them came from Hesse. Following the defeat of British forces, about 2,200 of them settled in Canada once their terms of service had expired or they had been released from American captivity. For example, a group from the Brunswick Regiment settled southwest of Montreal and south of Quebec City. In this, they formed part of a larger population movement composed of several waves of migration northward from the newly-founded United States to Upper and Lower Canada. In traditional Canadian historiography, these migrants are often grouped together under the broad label of United Empire Loyalists, obscuring particular ethnic and religious identities, as well as their exact motivations for migrating to Canada.

Another broad grouping of migrants were religious nonconformists, such as Quakers, Mennonites, and "Dunkers", who preferred British rule for religious reasons. These groups were formed on the basis of belief rather than ethnicity, but a number had their origin in Germany or in ethnic German communities in places such as Pennsylvania. These people are sometimes referred to by the Anglicized term "Pennsylvania Dutch", which derives from the endonym . This term has led to their confusion with modern-day Dutch people. For this reason, some historiographers such as George Elmore Reaman use the term "Pennsylvania German", in order to distinguish them from migrants originating in Holland. Another complicating factor in assigning definite ethnic identities or origins to many migrants is that a number spent sometimes as long as several generations living in intermediary places such as Pennsylvania, New York, Holland, or England, despite an ultimate origin in Germany. One example is the Irish Palatines, who originated in the Palatinate (today a part of Germany) but had been settled for a time in Ireland by the British Crown.

right|thumb|The Waterloo Pioneer Tower honours the Mennonite Germans who helped populate Waterloo County.

The largest group fleeing the United States was the Mennonites. Many of their families' ancestors had been from southern Germany or Switzerland. In the early 1800s, they began to move to what is now southwestern Ontario and settled around the Grand River, especially in Berlin, Ontario (now Kitchener) and in the northern part of what later became Waterloo County, Ontario.

The same geographic area also attracted new German migrants from Europe, roughly 50,000 between the 1830 and 1860. Research indicates that there was no apparent conflict between the Germans from Europe and those who came from Pennsylvania.

Late 19th and early 20th centuries

By 1871, nearly of the population of Waterloo County had German origins. Especially in Berlin, German was the dominant language spoken. Research indicates that there was no apparent conflict between the Germans from Europe and those who came from Pennsylvania.

First World War

Before and during World War I, there was some anti-German sentiment in the Waterloo County area and some cultural sanctions on the community, primarily in Berlin, Ontario (now Kitchener). Low enlistment rates fueled anti-Germany sentiment that precipitated the Berlin to Kitchener name change in 1916. The city was renamed after Lord Kitchener, famously pictured on the "Lord Kitchener Wants You" recruiting posters.

Several streets in Toronto that had previously been named for Liszt, Humboldt, Schiller, Bismarck, etc. were changed to names with strong British associations, such as Balmoral. There were anti-German riots in Victoria and in Calgary during the first years of the war.

News reports from Waterloo County, Ontario, indicate "A Lutheran minister was pulled out of his house... he was dragged through the streets. German clubs were ransacked through the course of the war. It was just a really nasty time period." A document in the Archives of Canada makes the following comment: "Although ludicrous to modern eyes, the whole issue of a name for Berlin highlights the effects that fear, hatred and nationalism can have upon a society in the face of war."

Across Canada, internment camps opened in 1915 and 8,579 "enemy aliens" were held there until the end of the war. Many were German-speaking immigrants from Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Ukraine. Only 3,138 were classed as prisoners of war; the rest were civilians.

Second World War and later

The Second World War saw a renewal of anti-German sentiment in Canada. Under the War Measures Act, some 26 prisoner-of-war camps opened and interned those who had been born in Germany, Italy, and particularly in Japan if they were deemed to be "enemy aliens". For Germans, that applied especially to single males who had some association with the Nazi Party of Canada. No compensation was paid to them after the war. In Ontario, the largest internment centre for German Canadians was at Camp Petawawa, which housed 750 who had been born in Germany and Austria.

Between 1945 and 1994, some 400,000 German-speaking immigrants arrived in Canada; approximately 270,000 of these arrived by the early 1960s. Around a third of postwar German immigrants were from various parts of Eastern Europe and formerly German or German-ruled territories which fell outside of the boundaries of the two postwar German states. Migration followed a sponsorship system predominantly led by churches, leading to an influx of German immigrants to existing German neighbourhoods in cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, as well as rural townships in the Prairies. Alexander Freund remarks that "[f]or postwar Canadians [...] the great influx of German-speaking immigrants after the war posed, at least potentially, a personal confrontation with the recent past that could be difficult to navigate." There were also tensions between Germans and other European immigrants, some of whom had suffered under German occupation in Europe. Postwar Canadians "did not distinguish between Germans and Nazis", and this perspective was bolstered by decades of American war films which portrayed Germans in an unsympathetic light. Pressure increased on Germans to assimilate. German-Canadians began to create advocacy organizations to promote their interests, such as the Trans-Canada Alliance for German Canadians, which was founded in 1951 by social democrats but was soon taken over by right-wing elements of the German community. In addition, the Canadian Baltic Immigrant Aid Society was founded in 1948 to provide information and aid to Baltic Germans immigrating to Canada.

Going into the 1960s, Canadian nationalism and ethnic politics revolved increasingly around the Anglophone-Francophone divide, leaving little place for other groups, including the Germans. As the war became more distant, the Canadian national narrative, guided by historians, journalists, and veterans' organizations, was formed with the exclusion of German or other inter-cultural perspectives on the war, emphasizing instead themes of heroism and sacrifice by Canadian soldiers. Some German-Canadians "withdrew into a 'culture of grievance.'" As time went on, Canadian perspectives broadened around controversial Allied actions such as the bombing of Dresden, which some German-Canadians found encouraging.

Demography

Population

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|1871<br>