Deutscher Herold Archive

In 1890, Hermann Butikofer and Paul B. Meyer began publishing a German-language newspaper, the Süd Dakota Nachrichten ("South Dakota News"), in Mitchell, South Dakota. In 1896, the newspaper was moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The six-column, eight-page publication cost $1.50 per year and was solidly Democratic. In 1900, Butikofer sold the newspaper to Hans Demuth, who renamed it the Süd Dakota Nachrichten und Herold ("South Dakota News and Herald"). Demuth increased the columns to seven, raised the price per year to $2, kept the pages at eight, and switched the newspaper's political stance from Democrat to Republican. In 1901, Demuth renamed the paper the Nachrichten - Herold ("News-Herald") and dropped the price to $1.50 per year. He stated that the Herold was the "Leading German newspaper in the state." In 1907, Demuth established the Herold Publishing Company and renamed the paper once again, with Friedrich W. Sallat and Edward Baumheier as editors. The new Deutscher Herold ("German Herald") ran between eight and twelve pages, had seven columns, and cost $2 per year. The paper continued to back the Republican Party and claimed a circulation of 5,200. In addition to Demuth, Sallat, and Baumheier, the Deutscher Herold was edited over the years by John Schroeder, Walter Fisher, and Conrad Kornmann.

Throughout its many-named history, the Herold was always published on Thursdays. It consistently carried a large amount of news from Germany and other foreign countries, as well as national, state, and local news. Letters from Russia written by relatives of the Volga Germans in South Dakota, as well as letters from "The Old Country", were published, as were articles by German-speaking correspondents in South Dakota and the surrounding states of Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota. Obituaries, market reports, lists of political candidates, articles against Prohibition, and legal notices also appeared. Serialized fiction was popular, many by the German author Roman von Franz Barrett. Advertisements for railroads serving the area were common as were their timetables; they included the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul; the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern; the Illinois Central; and the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha.

While there was the usual variety of advertisements in the Herold, two items were noticeable by their frequency: beer and shoes. Beer was even seen as promoting temperance, as one ad stated: "The increased demand for Budweiser for home use marks the declining popularity of the decanter-on-the-sideboard and is the greatest factor in promoting the cause of True Temperance."

The Herold was printed using Fraktur typeface; beginning in 1901 there was a very gradual increase in mixing "American" fonts in headlines and ads along with Fraktur. After 1905, there was also an increased use of English, with some articles and advertisements written completely in English by 1918.

Demuth gave his newspapers a distinct German flavor with much of the news reports expressing German pride. Under Sallat's editorship from 1907 to 1909, the Deutscher Herold kept up a running battle with Yankton's Dakota Freie Presse ("Dakota Free Press") over which paper was the most correctly German. Sallat accused the editor of the Dakota Freie Presse of leading its German readers astray, while stating the Herold would concentrate on news from Germany and South Russia, safeguard German interests, and publicize German ways. From 1912 on, a header stated: "Merchants who do not advertise in a German paper, do not deserve the German trade." Demuth supported the 1916 Republican presidential candidate Charles E. Hughes because ". . . he understands Germans." After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Demuth abruptly changed his tone to downplay his German identity, much to the disgust of Conrad Kornmann, his assistant editor. In December 1917, Demuth sold the Deutscher Herold to Kornmann, who was president of the South Dakota chapter of the German-American Alliance, an organization that celebrated the German ethnic heritage. In January 1918, Kornmann was arrested on charges of violating the 1917 Espionage Act because of private letters he had written to his friend Friedrich Sallat. Kornmann was found guilty in April 1918, and, even though this decision was later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, he lost both his newspaper and his reputation. The last issue of the Deutscher Herold was published on June 27, 1918.