The sea was calm for once. The Atlantic Ocean was rough, the waves shaking the cruiser around like a child trying to get sounds from a rattle in the past days. But today, the sails moved gently with the wind. Passengers walked on the deck, chatted, or just enjoyed the view and fresh air. Who knows when the next storm will force everyone in under deck?
Wilhelm Boeselager sat on a bench next to the ship’s black chimney and used the radiating heat to warm himself. The 49-year-old massaged his neck and jaw. He hadn’t slept well in over a week. He didn’t like ships or boats. When he was younger, he sailed on the Rhine multiple times. But it wasn’t his erratic fear of drowning that kept him awake. He was troubled by what would come next for himself and his family—the uncertainty of the New World.
It was the tenth day on the SS Hermann, the Norddeutsche Lloyd steamship sailing from Bremen to Philadelphia. The 318-foot-long ship carried the first name of the company’s founder, Hermann Henrich Meier. The ship was new, and Wilhelm glazed at the sails and halyards. If the weather plays along, the ship will arrive in Philadelphia in two days. The annoyed crew repeated that every minute or so to satisfy the passengers’ need for information. There, they would continue to the Philadelphia Barge Office and begin their immigration process.
Wilhelm barely spoke any English. Luckily, his wife Katharina worked at a bank that regularly dealt with international customers, and through her profession, she developed English skills, which will be sufficient for the upcoming challenges. She would probably do fine and be the first to find work. Not all immigrants from Prussia or other states of the Norddeutscher Bund spoke English. Soon, many would seek her help to translate documents or even teach them English. The German Society of Pennsylvania has already provided her with a list of lawyers and companies that constantly seek her type of skill set.
For almost two years, she taught Wilhelm and his twin sons basic English every evening for an hour or two. It was enough to converse with others who learned English, but the true test would wait for them in Philadelphia. Katharina made sure they also gained the vocabulary relevant to brewers. Because that’s what he and his sons planned to do. Work at a brewery or even start a family business.
So far, the society only found an engineering company willing to hire Wilhelm and his sons. That was two months ago, and Wilhelm didn’t commit yet. He was a brewer, not an engineer. Although he worked and fixed machinery and tanks in the Rhineland, it wouldn’t fit him perfectly.
A man sat down next to him. “It got a little bit …,” the man hesitated, searching for the right word. Wilhelm had a rough idea of what he was trying to say. “Musty?”
“Ah yes, musty.” The man leaned back. “I’m Jakob Haller. Who are you?”
“Wilhelm Boeselager, nice to meet you.” The men shook hands. Wilhelm mustered the passenger. Jakob looked like he was in his mid-thirties. The clean-shaven man had a bowler on his head, which he pulled over his eyes. Wilhelm decided to do the same, but Jakob interrupted him.
“So, what will you do in the New World?”
“I hope I can brew beer. I’m a master brewer. My sons finished their apprenticeships and are also brewers.”
“You are kidding,” Jakob pushed his hat back so he could look at Wilhelm. “Where did you work?”
“I was a co-owner and master brewer of the Brunsdorff Brewery in Cologne.”
Jakob shook his head in disbelief. “Then why are you here?”
Wilhelm took a deep breath. Then he explained. “War hasn’t been kind to me, and I don’t want my sons to experience it.”
As a child, Wilhelm only experienced war through his father’s gruesome stories of the Napoleonic Wars. His father fought on the Prussian side in the final battles. He survived the battles of Ligny and Belle-Alliance, which would become more popular as the Battle of Waterloo. Wilhelm was born on a farm near Aachen three years after Blücher rushed to Wellington’s aid.
In his teenage years, he became a brewer’s apprentice. After completing training, he traveled to the Kingdom of Bavaria and worked at other breweries. Also, he stayed in some abbeys where monks would teach Wilhelm their craft. In 1840, he returned to West Prussia, where he settled in Cologne and became a conscript. Unlike other conscripts, the Army wouldn’t send him to an infantry regiment but instead recognized his experience as a brewer and sent him to the Prussian Army’s brewery in Cologne-Ehrenfeld. Wilhelm was impressed by the high standards the Kölnische Garnisonsbrauerei lived by. In return, the master brewer hailed his talents and allowed him to start his journey to become a master brewer. By the end of his mandatory service in 1843, he achieved the rank of Unteroffizier. He was responsible for training his young successors.
While looking for work, Wilhelm met a group of men who acquired a defunct brewery near the Saint-Gereon basilica in the Neustadt district. One of the investors was the uncle of a master brewer in the Garrison Brewery, who hired Wilhelm as the first master brewer of the Brunsdorff Brauerei. The brewery’s brewpub became popular, and the brewery built a new pub near Prussia’s most famous construction site: the Cologne Cathedral. Brunsdorff made a name for itself in the region. 1847 the brewery delivered beer to Bonn, Düsseldorf, and Aachen.
1848 was the year he met his wife, Katharina. The revolution that began in France the previous month reached Cologne on March 3, 1848. On his way home, he came across a crowd fleeing from something. A young man stumbled, fell, and caused ten others to fall over him. A young woman dodged the pile of bodies and ran into Wilhelm, who caught her. A moment later, another group, but in uniforms this time, came and brutally beat down whoever attempted to get up. One serviceman walked towards Wilhelm and Katharina. Wilhelm recognized the sergeant.
“Who is she?” The serviceman who was a regular in the Brunsdorff Zum Dom pub asked.
“Everything is fine, Unteroffizier Brandt. I was taking this lady out to dinner,” Wilhelm gestured towards the redhead. Four eyes were now looking at Katharina. She was breathing heavily. “She is shocked by the beating your comrades gave them. I don’t think she ever witnessed such violence.”
The sergeant looked at his men, then nodded. “Herr Boeselager, maybe it is safer to turn around and choose a different path.” While Wilhelm and Katharina walked in the other direction, they only heard Sergeant Brandt ordering his men to release the group.
“Most of the troops don’t like the king. They don’t want to jail the people.” Wilhelm’s new acquaintance gave him a puzzled look. “Miss, I’m sorry I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Wilhelm Boeselager. But now I have to invite you to dinner. Just to back the story we told the Unteroffizier.”
The two indeed spent some hours together and had dinner at the pub connected to the brewery. Wilhelm learned she worked for her father but would spend more time elsewhere. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels would soon run the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
He found it odd that a banker’s daughter participated in the protests. Unlike many other citizens in Prussia, she had nothing to worry about in her life. But she explained with passion what it meant for her. Political reforms and democratic rights. Would she want to vote as well? Even though he wasn’t allowed to participate in politics, he lived a comfortable life and never felt the need to vote.
But she changed his mind, and he admired her. He wouldn’t participate in the protests since too much was at risk for him, but whenever he had time, he was nearby, listened to the speeches, and escorted her home. He was in love.
At almost the same time as the revolution, Prussia waged war against Denmark after a dispute over the succession to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The Danish king ruled the duchies, but they were also part of the German Confederation. When the Danish king died in January 1848, there was no clear successor to the duchies. Denmark claimed that the duchies should pass to the new Danish king, while Germany declared that a German prince should rule the duchies. Denmark and Prussia signed the Armistice of Malmö on August 26, 1848, which only lasted six months. In January 1849, Wilhelm reported to the nearest barracks.
He received a uniform, rifle, bayonet, mess kit, and other equipment. After a few days of military training, he and the rest of the 6th Landwehr Infanterie Regiment marched through Cologne toward the train station in Cologne-Deutz. Twenty-four hours later, he disembarked at Danewirke. Luckily, his craft helped him serve in safety by commanding a field brewery and a field kitchen.
Although Wilhelm never had to fire a rifle, he saw the outcoming for the individual. Wilhelm volunteered at a field hospital whenever he was overstaffed and threw up more than once upon witnessing the amputations, the massacred corpses, and the empty looks on the pale faces of the men lined up for quick burials. This experience was crucial to his decision to emigrate two decades later.
He paused and escaped his grim memories. He looked over to Jakob Haller, who rested his elbows on the knees, paying close attention to Wilhelm’s story.
“I remember being excited about the war,” Jakob broke the brief silence. “We thought that this would unite the German nations. I never thought about what the troops went through.”
The Treaty of Berlin in July 1850 ended the hostilities between Prussia and Denmark. Wilhelm returned home. But he didn’t feel at home. People cheered and called them heroes at every stop on the way back to Cologne. Some patted him on the shoulder and damned the king for signing the peace treaty. He mostly ignored them.
Katharina knew instantly that something wasn’t right. Wilhelm used to be more talkative and eloquent, nor did he present his sharp humor as usual. Also, he immediately returned to the brewery, where he worked non-stop. One evening, Katharina visited him at the brewery.
“Wilhelm, why did the letters stop?”
It took him a minute to form his response. “One day, the regiment participated in an offensive. The field hospital wasn’t too far from us, so the surgeons and stretcher-bearers could quickly eat and drink during their breaks. That day, they barely showed up because they were so busy.” Wilhelm, who stood next to a mash tun, now sat down on a stool. “We decided to help out in the field hospital. I’ve never seen so much suffering. I wasn’t sure if anyone here would understand, so I preferred not to share it,” Wilhelm lowered his head. “And I’m afraid the memories won’t let go of me.”
In the following weeks, Katharina and Wilhelm returned to their old habits even though the revolution ended. Then, things developed rapidly. In late 1850, they married, and on November 11, 1851, Katharina gave birth to twins Walther and Karl.
Many revolutionaries, democrats, and socialists left Prussia after the failed strive for rights. The Boeselager family remained in Prussia. The prospect of living in wealth, the nearby family, and the house they purchased was motivation enough to stay. The fight wasn’t over for Katharina, and she wrote articles under a different name for several newspapers, which the Prussian authorities banned one after the other. Occasionally, she received letters from friends who now lived in the United States. The seed for the emigration thoughts was planted.
Over the years, the Boeselager family lived a comfortable life. It wasn’t luxurious, but they never had to worry about money or other needs. The Brunsdorff Brewery recognized Wilhelm’s part in their success and made him a shareholder. Katharina continued to work at the same bank where her father worked. Their children went to school, and their disobedience at school was their only trouble.
The boys were too smart for themselves. They pulled pranks and sneaked out of school to play in the brewery, and their father had to bring them back. Luckily, the distance was short, and Wilhelm knew the principal. It also helped that the principal’s son worked at the brewery, so the punishments were less harsh. In 1864, at age 13, Wilhelm and Karl began their apprenticeship at the Brunsdorff brewery. On paper, a different master brewer had to train them, but in reality, they learned from their father.
The Second Schleswig War overshadowed the same year. Prussia and Austria fought against Denmark, and in late October 1864, after nearly nine months of fighting, the Treaty of Vienna ended the conflict. The duchies of Saxe-Lauenburg, Schleswig, and Holstein were now under Prussian and Austrian control. The two Germanic nations failed to find common ground on administration issues, and the Prussian chancellor happily orchestrated the preconditions for a new war by suggesting a German union under Prussian leadership and excluding Austria. Austria declared war on June 14, 1866. Just seven weeks later, Prussia decided the German Question by defeating Austria.
Wilhelm’s instinct sounded alarm. Prussia may have defeated Austria, but the German states weren’t united yet. The Southern German states didn’t join the new federation. The Northern German Federation stood for something like a union, but it was only the Northern German states. Could there be another war? One day, while watching his sons arguing over technicalities over brewing, he concluded that he would discuss the prospect of emigration with Katharina.
“I assume your wife agreed then,” Jakob asked.
“Not immediately,” Wilhelm responded. “She wasn’t as skeptical as I was. And she had some slight doubts since the Civil War raged in Amerika.” Wilhelm didn’t notice that he pronounced America the German way.
“Then how did you convince her?”
“The boys,” Wilhelm sighed. “They’re 17 now. The conscription age is 20, but during times of war, the Army may drop the minimum age. I explained that leaving Prussia is the only way to spare them this suffering.”
“You must really love your sons,” Jakob commented. “Leaving everything behind and starting over new.”
Wilhelm nodded and noticed how the breeze suddenly picked up. The clear sky was gone, and dark clouds approached them westward. Some sailors stepped out of the bridge and spread over the deck. “Gentlemen, please go under deck. It seems that America is welcoming us with a storm.”
“Ah well…,” Wilhelm turned towards Jakob, but he already left. “Farewell, my friend. Thanks for listening,” he mumbled before heading back to his cabin.