1918: Robert Prager lynched during war hysteria

ExecutedToday.com ^ | April 5, 2011 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1918, German coalminer Robert Prager was lynched near Collinsville, Ill., for making disloyal utterances against the United States as his adoptive country entered World War I. Basically the most visible and famed victim of patriotic anti-German bellicosity, Prager ironically is rather difficult to reconstruct as an unambiguous anti-war activist. After his mob execution, a baker would even come forward to say that he had been thrown in the clink when Prager accused him … of badmouthing a patriotic display. Prager himself had tried to enlist in the Navy and been rejected for medical reasons

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

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[Ex gun maker.]

Tried to read the linked article but the bias is far too odious.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

I grew up in that area and am familiar with the story. I am of German ancestry too, and I wish some of those old Germans were still around so I could ask them about their experiences at that time. My grandmother and father never mentioned anything, so I don’t know if nothing happened where they were, or things did happen and they just didn’t see fit to bring it up.

This article does have an unnecessary slant that makes it less-reliable as history. The Wikipedia article on Prager is actually much better. My understanding has always been that the anti-German sentiment had become a frenzy and a mob wanted to teach a German a lesson. Prager was known because he had been involved in some local labor and political controversies and so was as good as any German for the point the mob wanted to make.