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     Victor Berger, although his detractors identified him throughout much of his political life as a German, was actually born in Nieder-Rehback, Austria-Hungary, in 1860.  At the age of eighteen, fearing conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army, Berger emigrated to the United States, where he eventually settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a metal polisher.  His life as a member of the Milwaukee industrial working class was relatively short-lived, however.  As the oldest son of a comfortably well-off Jewish family, Berger had received a thorough education in Vienna.  Beginning in 1883, Berger put that education to use as a German language teacher in the Milwaukee public schools.  Berger maintained his love for knowledge throughout his life, eventually accumulating one of the largest private libraries in Milwaukee.  This fondness for the written language, both English and German, eventually provided Berger with his bread and butter as a publisher of newspapers.  Berger purchased his first paper, the German-language Wisconsin Vorwærts, in 1892.  Berger's most influential paper, however, was the Milwaukee Leader, established in 1911.  The Leader, a popular Socialist daily, eventually became Berger's main organ for the expression of his opposition to World War I.³

     The city in which the Leader became one of the most widely-circulated Socialist dailies was an ideal breeding ground for Victor Berger's socialism.  For much of Milwaukee's history, Americans have perceived the city as a place where "if you want the mob to lend you an ear, shout beer, socialism, and Deutschland."⁴  This tripartite stereotype of Milwaukee residents as lovers of lager, Marx, and the Fatherland was not an entirely false description during Victor Berger's reign as the city's Socialist party boss.  Especially after the revolutions of 1848, German immigrants flocked to the Wisconsin city on the western shores of Lake Michigan.  As a result, German immigrants and their descendants composed an overwhelming percentage of Milwaukee's population.  For example, in the 1860 census, 52 percent of Milwaukee residents labeled themselves ethnically German, while only 10 percent considered themselves of British origin.⁵  The influence of German-language newspapers⁶ and preserved aspects of German life, such as the popular German theater⁷, helped to shape Milwaukee's deserved reputation as a stronghold of German-American culture.  One former resident of Milwaukee remembered her mother's stories about the prominence of German-American culture in early twentieth-century Milwaukee.  According to the woman's mother, who had been born in America and spoke only English, when a non-German-American went shopping in Milwaukee in the 1910s, one always had to be on the lookout for signs in shop windows which proclaimed "English Spoken Here."⁸

     The influence of German culture and ideas extended into Milwaukee politics.  Though not all German-Americans were Socialists, many German-Americans, especially immigrants who had fled Germany after the failed revolutions of 1848, were "enthusiastic partisans of the new communist and socialist doctrines."⁹  The dominance of industry and the presence of a large working-class population accustomed to the ideas of German socialist philosophies also helped the Socialists gain a political strength in Milwaukee unrivaled in other American cities of similar size.¹⁰ 

     This Germanic influence on Milwaukee's culture and politics proved an unfortunate liability during World War I.  Self-appointed patriots attacked Milwaukeeans for their supposed advocacy of the contemptible motto of "Beer and peace."¹¹  Although many Milwaukeeans may indeed have enjoyed a few beers while calling for a peaceful end to the war, for most residents of Milwaukee, America's involvement in the war was a much more complex matter.  German-Americans in Milwaukee found themselves torn, as did German-Americans throughout the country, between their dedications to both sides of their ethnic hyphen.  As one troubled Milwaukee mother put it, "Oh, I love America;  it is my home, my country.  But I love Germany, too!"¹²

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