This chapter focuses on the persecution and response of German Americans in wartime America. It shows that under wartime pressure, public symbols of conflicting loyalties — flags, languages, voluntary associations, schools — disappeared. If the obligation of loyalty could not be coerced, the obligation of silence could — and during the war, it was, with new tools of state power that changed the relationship of the citizen to the government. Time and again, German Americans chose silence, which helped them walk the line between loyalty and disloyalty in a hostile America.
Keywords: World War I, German Americans, loyalty, citizenship, wartime America,