List of German-language newspapers of Ontario

The Rittinger & Motz printing firm
The Rittinger & Motz printing firm of Berlin, Ontario (pictured c. 1906–1908) printed several German-language newspapers, including the Berliner Journal, Die Ontario Glocke and Der Canadische Kolonist.[1]

In nineteenth-century Upper Canada,[a] German-language publications were in high demand. After the English and French, Germans were the third-largest immigrant group in Canada.[4][b] Most Germans settled in Waterloo County, especially in the towns of Berlin (now Kitchener) and Waterloo, and most newspapers were established there to service the population.[7][c] In any year between 1859 and 1908, Waterloo County typically had four German newspapers, and always between three and five. In the period from 1835 to 1914, nine German newspapers were founded in Berlin and Waterloo and six in Preston, New Hamburg and Elmira.[7] German is the only language other than English or French to have had a flourishing newspaper press in Ontario; approximately thirty German newspapers were published in the province between 1835 to 1918.[9]

Ontario's first German-language newspaper, Canada Museum und Allgemeine Zeitung, was founded in Berlin in 1835, predating the town's first English-language newspaper by 18 years.[7] German-language publications were not typically read outside of Ontario's German communities, leading them to focus their reporting on local news and interpretations foreign events. Due to their small readership, they exerted little political influence on anything other than a local level.[10] Most publication were dependent upon a small population group[11] and folded after only a few years, but the towns Berlin, Waterloo and New Hamburg each supported at least one German newspaper until 1909, by which time all competitors had either folded or amalgamated into Berlin's Berliner Journal.[7]

On 25 September 1918, in the last weeks of the First World War, the Canadian government passed an Order in Council[12] prohibiting "the publication of books, newspapers, magazines or any printed matter in the language of any country or people for the time being at war with Great Britain."[13] The Order had the effect of banning German-language publications, leading to the 1918 closure of the last remaining German newspaper, the Berliner Journal (since renamed the Ontario Journal).[14] Although the government repealed the order in January 1920, it was not until 1967 that another German-language newspaper appeared – the Kitchener Journal, which ceased publication in 1969.[15]

In the wake of the Second World War, a surge in immigration of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and Germany led to a small revival of Ontario's German-language newspapers.[16] Toronto's das journal, first published in 2011, is presently Ontario's only German-language newspaper.[17][18]

  1. ^ Kalbfleisch 1968, pp. 102–104.
  2. ^ Kalbfleisch 1968, p. 18.
  3. ^ Careless, Foot & McIntosh 2019.
  4. ^ Löchte 2008, p. 107.
  5. ^ a b Bloomfield 1995, p. 214.
  6. ^ McLaughlin 1985, p. 3.
  7. ^ a b c d McKegney 1991, p. 8.
  8. ^ Kalbfleisch 1968, p. 67.
  9. ^ Kalbfleisch 1968, pp. 11, 17.
  10. ^ Kalbfleisch 1968, p. 11.
  11. ^ Kalbfleisch 1968, p. 17.
  12. ^ McKegney 1991, pp. 8, 224n29.
  13. ^ Bausenhart 1972, p. 35.
  14. ^ English & McLaughlin 1983, p. 163.
  15. ^ Leibbrandt 1980, pp. 158, 160.
  16. ^ Frisse 2005, p. 857.
  17. ^ Das Journal. OCLC 843473149. Retrieved 19 May 2021 – via WorldCat.
  18. ^ "das journal – Profile". das journal. Archived from the original on 4 November 2020. Retrieved 15 May 2021.


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