Germans have comprised a significant part of the population of South Australia almost since the State's foundation. This has been variously estimated at between 7% and 10% until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The first British setters arrived in South Australia in 1836. Some years earlier in 1817 in Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm III had made the first moves to unite all the Protestants in his Kingdom in a Union Church by the introduction of a common official liturgy. This was not entirely successful and many congregations continued to use the old Lutheran form of worship. In 1830 Friedrich Wilhelm ordered that all congregations should use the church order. Pastors who did not conform were sent to prison and their goods confiscated. Parishioners who followed the old liturgy found it impossible to hold services or have their children baptised and confirmed.

By the year 1855 Germans and their children already constituted over 8% of the population of South Australia. The early German settlers who had emigrated to South Australia as early as 1838, only two years after the foundation of the province, were followed by many others. The first German settlers had come because they were suffering religious persecution in their homeland. Later settlers came to enjoy the freedom, the sun and the economic prosperity of the new colony. Many came because they had friends or relatives already in the province.

By the year 1850 Germans and their children already constituted some 10% of the population of South Australia. Today I should like to look at two particular aspects of German immigration into Adelaide: the rights of Germans as citizens and secondly, to try and illustrate how the German community was in every sense, disunited. Unlike it was perceived by many British-Australians, it was anything but monolithic.

The 1850s were politically important years for the German settlers. Two German newspapers had been launched, Die Deutsche Post (The German Post) and Deutsche Zeitung für Südaustralien, (German Newspaper for South Australia) and a German Hospital had been opened. The Liedertafel started as did the famous Brunswick Brass Band. Der Deutsche Club (German Club) began in 1854 and was to flourish as a centre of German culture and learning until 1907. German miners from the Harz Mountains were active in the colony's copper fields while German smelters brought their skills of how to smelt with timber to the Glen Osmond and the Burra mines. In the 1850s numerous German silver and goldsmiths arrived in the colony to settle in Adelaide, as did cabinet and piano makers.

Witchcraft: A European phenomenon of Medieval times? No, it flourished in South Australia only last century, and may still persist today. In this article on our German settlers, Adelaide historian, Dr Ian Harmstorf, discusses some of the beliefs, both sacred and profane, of the superstitious country folk who came here from Prussia.

Along with their cakes, carts, culture and religion, the Germans brought to South Australia a little-publicised aspect of their European heritage-witchcraft!

Exactly when witchcraft came to the new colony is impossible to determine, but the knowledge necessary to practise the black art is believed to have been brought here by at least 1842.

'True Germans ... are always highly patriotic South Australians' [1] said C. Krichauff in the Australische Zeitung (Australian Newspaper) in 1896. Like most Germans – the term Germans is used in the most general sense to include all those of German birth or ethnic affiliation – he considered that a clear distinction could be made between a cultural German and a political South Australian. Three years later the Boer War suggested that this assumption was untrue. World War I confirmed it. This paper attempts to trace the history of the relationship in South Australia between German-Australians and British-Australians.

Under the leadership of Pastor August Kavel, German-Lutherans had initially settled near Adelaide at a place they named Klemzig (after a village situated in the then Prussian province of Brandenburg). A great deal is made of the fact that the German-Lutherans under Pastor Kavel were refugees from religious persecution. However, under a Prussian Cabinet Order of 1834, the possible gaoling and confiscation of the goods of dissident pastors who insisted on using the 'Old Liturgy' had ceased, after only four years in force. [2] Nonetheless, the ban on the use of the 'Old Liturgy' still existed and as such it could not be used in churches because Lutheranism was a state religion whose pastors were in effect civil servants. As a result the 'Old Lutherans' who wanted to use the 'Old Liturgy' or 'Old Agenda' were forced to meet in private. A place to worship in peace was sought. Inquiries were made through Hamburg concerning the possibilities of emigration to Russia to join the Germans on the Volga, or the United States of America. Finally the choice fell on the new province of South Australia. The choice was no doubt expedited by the fact that a loan at an appropriate rate of interest was forthcoming for this purpose from the dissident English philanthropist George Fife Angas.

German influence in South Australia reached a high point in the 1890s. In the census of 1891 Lutherans numbered over 7% of the South Australian population and it is estimated that German born and their descendants constituted approximately 10% of the total population of the State.

Germans were well respected in the State Parliament, holding seats with large German-Australian populations, a great many of whom were farmers. Martin Basedow, Robert Homburg, Friedrich Krichauff and Theo Scherk were all members of Parliament at some stage during the 1890s and all had a reputation for integrity and hard work. Robert Homburg was the most important member of the German community, owning a law firm and being Attorney General in two ministries from 1890—1892 and 1892—1893.