And Allan Turing was incarcerated for being a homosexual.
The West was really at a low point in those times despite having won the war.
So did the US. Not to try to excuse the German internment since it had its own problems, but it's really telling to compare what the British, Canadians and Americans did with ethnic Germans and Italians, compared to ethnic Japanese. Basically, it was mostly restricted to Germans and Italians with much closer actual ties; first generation immigrants, people with business connections, recent travel.
If the Americans, in particular, had taken the same approach to ethnic Germans and Italians that they did to ethnic Japanese - even one great-grandparent being proof of probable complicity with the enemy -- they would have had to detain roughly a quarter of all white Americans.
"German-language newspapers thrived as Germans became Indiana’s largest immigrant population by 1850. The Täglicher Telegraph und Tribüne, located near here, was among over 175 German-language newspapers published in Indiana, 1843-1920. These newspapers were important vehicles for readers in integrating and maintaining their cultural identities with American values. U.S. entry into WWI in 1917 created suspicion and antipathy toward German-American schools, churches, clubs and newspapers. Several of these Indiana newspapers, which had tried to present balanced war coverage, closed by 1918. This included the Täglicher Telegraph und Tribüne and papers in Berne, South Bend, Logansport, Evansville, and Terre Haute." https://events.in.gov/event/ihb-german-newspapers-demise
Before World War I, many German-Americans sent their children to schools that taught classes in German. In 1919, Indiana banned the teaching of German in schools: https://blog.history.in.gov/when-indiana-banned-the-german-l....
Before World War I, many streets and cities had German names. They were renamed during the war: "City and street names were changed from German-sounding designations to more Americanized ones. For example, East Germantown, Indiana, was renamed Pershing, Indiana. Ironically, Gen. John J. Pershing, supreme commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, came from a family that had changed its name from the German Pfoerschin." https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2014/su...
Before World War I, you could drink beer in an beer garden in Indiana. The Indiana legislature ratified Prohibition in 1919 and two days later Nebraska did also which gave the amendment a three-fourths majority. Beer was outlawed.
So in 1917, a German-American could live in Indiana on a German named street in a German named city, get their news from a German language newspaper, send their child to a German language public school and drink beer in a beer garden on a Saturday afternoon, and by 1920, that was all over.
So yeah, I guess your great grandfather wasn't harassed any, but all of that was erased.
We don't seem so far from them, conceptually or temporally.
There is a need for a serious sit-and-think about whether we are slouching our way toward Big Brother.
Would that the answer were a solid: "No, we are NOT creating Big Brother inadvertently."
Yes, Americans were the "good guys" - but we weren't perfect.