FBI Investigation of a Pulskamp
Posted on March 12, 2008 - Filed Under Family history
Poking around on the Internet, I found a report on an FBI investigation of a Pulskamp. Imagine my surprise! I was even more surprised to find out it was not one of my immediate family. Now calm down. The young man involved was completely exhonorated and may not have even known he was under investigation.
It turns out that Catholics and Germans were not always welcome in America. The Know-Nothing Party was pretty active in Franklin County, Indiana, where the Pulskamps had settled. There were, at times, some rather unpleasant experiences, including suspicious fires and other unusual events in the area. I’m not sure how long these attitudes stayed around, but they were still there by the time the United States entered World War I.
At that point, many were afraid that German families might still have strong ties and sympathy for the German nation, now at war with the U.S. A neighbor wrote a letter to the Provost Marshall General in Washington, DC, reporting that some young men from the Oldenberg, Indiana area “had been improperly classified by false affidavits made by pro-German sympathisers.” The letter writer stated that “there were boys residing in his community who were given deferred classification on the grounds of dependency, skilled labor and agriculture who should have been placed in Class I: that the town of Oldenberg and the country around was and is strongly pro-German; that there was no chance as he thought for him to do anything about the matters; that there were affidavits on file at Brookville, (the County Seat of Franklin County, Indiana), which were keeping these boys out of the service and which same would prove false upon investigation; that even his post office there was in the dwelling of a registered alien enemy, and that there was not a Notary Public in the town who could be trusted to make out an affidavit in respect to these matters.“ Letter to Provost Marshal General, August 3, 1918
Eleven boys were named as avoiding military service, including Joseph Ertel and Frank Pulskamp, both related to our family. Both these young men were exhonorated, as were most of the men. Two were reported on separately, so I don’t know what became of their case, and two were reclassified. Then the case was closed. I wonder if Frank even knew about it. (See photo of Frank in story below.) 
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