A first printing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in German, from July 6-8, 1776 © Deutsches Historisches Museum After the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, the founding fathers faced a new challenge: spreading the word that the United States of America was an independent nation.
That was hard to do in an era when public communication depended on horseback postage networks and old-fashioned oration. Overnight, printers worked to produce some 200 English-language copies of the Declaration of Independence on broadsides—large, cheap paper sheets that could be pasted onto walls in public spaces—that were distributed throughout the colonies.
But sharing only English-language copies, in a nation made up of immigrants, would have been a poor strategy. Translations of the text were needed, notably into German. Of the 2.5 million people living in the colonies at the time, some 100,000 were Germans, many of whom did not speak English, reports the New York Times’ Thomas Rogers.
Melchior Steiner and Charles Jacob Sigismund Thiel, who together ran a Philadelphia-based German-language printing firm called Steiner and Cist, were the men for the job. The duo had previously produced a German run of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, or Gesunde Vernunft, and frequently translated government documents into German.
On July 5, an announcement was made in the German newspaper Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote that the Declaration of Independence had been signed and was being printed. On July 8, the first German broadside was published. It differed from the original in its typeface: a gothic font was easier, at the time, for German readers.
“It’s not a pretty document, but it has a powerful presence,” philosophy professor Daniel DeNicola of Gettysburg College said in an article published by the institution, which owns one of just two surviving German-language Declarations of Independence.
“This document shows that the words and sentiments expressed in the Declaration of Independence were meant for all Americans,” Carolyn Sautter, director of special collections and college archives at Gettysburg College, added in that same story. “It is a clear statement of intent: All men are created equal, no matter what language they speak within our borders.”
The only other German-language copy resides today in Berlin, at the German Historical Museum, where it has been put on public display in time to honor America’s 250th birthday as part of the exhibition “Objects. History. Stories. Reviewing the Collection.”
The institution acquired the document in 1993, just four years after the Berlin Wall fell, for an amount that today equals about $550,000, and it remains one of the most expensive artifacts in its collection.
“The purchase was meant to show how committed we are to Western democratic values,” exhibition curator Wolfgang Cortjaens tells the Times.
Last week, the U.S. Embassy in Germany celebrated America’s semiquincentennial.
“From the outset, America was conceived to be a bold experiment in democratic self-government, an experiment that inspired the world,” Alan Meltzer, chargé d’affaires a.i. of the U.S. Mission to Germany, said in a speech, according to an embassy statement. “... Even the briefest sojourn through our shared history shows that German culture, tradition, and ingenuity have been woven into the fabric of American society and democracy from the very beginning.”
Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.
