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The fact that most of the original settlers of Berlin weren't directly German but were Mennonites from Pennsylvania didn't help, and the Mennonites' refusal to join the war effort (due to their pacifism) only increased tensions. The slow pace of recruitment for the local 118 Battalion led to suspicions of disloyalty. A bust of Kaiser Wilhelm, set up in Victoria Park long before the war (appropriate given that Kaiser Wilhelm was Queen Victoria's first cousin), was thrown into Victoria Lake twice, and then vanished forever, possibly melted down to produce guns.
In 1916, a movement began to change the name of the city. It did not have the support of the wider community. A contest was held to choose a new name and the results were ridiculed. [1] When news hit that Britain's Minister of War, Lord Kitchener, was killed in action off the Orkney Islands, his name was put forward as a possible replacement, and the whole matter was put up to referendum.
The referendum itself did not give Berlin residents the option of maintaining the status quo, and anybody who spoke up against this process was viewed with suspicion. According to an article from the National Archives of Canada [2], "Those citizens who supported the status quo were immediately perceived, by those who wanted change, as being unpatriotic and sympathizers with the enemy. Violence, riots and intimidation, often instigated by imperialistic members of the 118th Battalion, were not uncommon in the months leading up to the May 1916 referendum on the issue."
Unable to oppose the change, the community stayed home. Only 892 people bothered to vote (Berlin's population at the time was over 15,000) and of those, just 346 were enough to change the name of the city to that of Kitchener. Following the referendum, a petition of 2000 names was sent to Queen's Park to try to stop the process, but they were turned down.
The name change of the City of Berlin to the City of Kitchener mirrored similar anti-German name changes in CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe and the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in, from liberty burgers to liberty cabbageLiberty cabbage is a bowdlerization of the word " sauerkraut. It was used most in the first half of the twentieth century, mostly during World War I. Similar euphemisms, some of which did not spring up until World War II, include " liberty measles" for ", and was echoed by the anti-French sentiment in the United StatesAnti-French sentiment in the United States or Francophobia is characterized by disapproval of many or all things French. It often takes the form of moral censure ("treacherous" or "cowardly") corresponding with tensions in Franco-U. In its extreme form it early in 2003, with freedom friesFreedom fries was a short-lived name used in the United States for french fries. The "freedom fries" affair was an unusual example of anti-French sentiment in the United States. In the international debates over the decision to launch the 2003 invasion of. Kitchener is one of the few names that stuck during that period of anti-German sentiment, however. When the city was building its new city hall early in the 1990s, there was a small movement to change the city's name back to Berlin, but most felt that too much history had passed, and that it was time to move on.