A Rare Echo of 1776
In the quiet halls of Berlin’s German Historical Museum, a single, fragile broadside rests under glass. It is a German-language printing of the Declaration of Independence—one of the two surviving copies. Printed in 1776, the document offers a stark, concrete reminder that the United States was born not as a monolith, but as a multilingual experiment.
Communication Across a New Frontier
When the members of the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration on July 4, 1776, the challenge of geography was matched by the challenge of language. Roughly 100,000 Germans lived within the 13 colonies. To bridge the gap, the Philadelphia firm Steiner and Cist rushed the text into print. They opted for a gothic typeface, ensuring the message of independence was more legible to the German speakers at the time.
The document was meant to be posted on streets and in workplaces. “It’s a testament to the early linguistic diversity of the United States, but also to the prominent role that German-speaking immigrants played in the country’s early days,” says Wolfgang Cortjaens, the exhibition’s curator. The other surviving copy resides at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.
The Berlin Acquisition
The museum bought the document in 1993, four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As the nation grappled with reunification, the artifact served as a bridge to Western democratic ideals. “The purchase was meant to show how committed we are to Western democratic values,” Cortjaens explains. It was a significant investment for the museum, costing over a million German marks—about $550,000 today.
Beyond the Myth of Assimilation
The influence of German immigrants on American life is vast, stretching from the introduction of kindergarten to the ubiquity of hot dogs and Christmas trees. Walter Kamphoefner, a professor who focuses on German American history at Texas A&M University, notes that while many Germans backed the revolution, the community was not a monolith. Mennonites and Amish, for instance, were opposed to violence.
Kamphoefner also works to dismantle the “Muhlenberg Legend,” the persistent myth that a single vote in 1789 narrowly prevented German from becoming the official language of the United States. “No such vote took place,” Kamphoefner says. “But the story persists because it serves a political purpose—portraying assimilation as a virtue.”
A Complicated Transatlantic Legacy
During the Civil War, about 10 percent of the Union army was German, driven by a broad opposition to slavery. Yet, today, the historical bond is strained. Disputes over U.S. policies regarding Greenland and Iran have taken a toll on the partnership. A January poll by the national broadcaster ARD found that only 15 percent of Germans see the United States as a trustworthy partner.
Despite the cooling of modern relations, the document remains a touchstone. Matthias Miller, a curator of books and manuscripts at the museum, argues that the broadside highlights a foundational American trait: it shows how the U.S. met immigrants “halfway.” As the U.S. nears its 250th anniversary, the Declaration stands as both a relic of past cooperation and a mirror for the evolving transatlantic divide.
Worth a look