Talk of a national World War I memorial formally began Thursday, but few realize that South Dakota has had one since 1932, area history experts said.

“A lot of people don’t realize the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building, across from the Capitol, is the World War I memorial here in South Dakota,” said Jay Vogt, executive director of the South Dakota State Historical Society. “It was built largely using private funds to commemorate the men and women who participated in World War I.”

In addition to serving as a memorial, the building today houses offices of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

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Another World War I Memorial in Winner has been nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historians say World War I had a big impact on South Dakota culture. Five percent of South Dakota’s population joined the army — higher than the national average of 4 percent.

“The proportion of South Daktoans who served was high,” said Frank Van Nuys, an associate professor history at the South Dakota School of Mines. “Generally speaking, there was a good deal of enthusiasm on the part of South Dakotans. This would include many of the German-heritage population.”

At the time of the U.S. entry into the war in 1917, around one-third of the state’s foreign-born population — then a little over 10 percent of the state — were of German heritage. The domestic effects of the war included some persecution of German speakers and had some long-lasting effects on South Dakota culture.

“There was sort of a national hysteria about Germans,” Van Nuys said. “It was particularly hard on some of the German population in the state that were less well-assimilated — still speaking German — or on those who were politically suspect because they happened to be socialist as well.”

State laws during World War I banned the use of the German language in schools, in telephone conversations and in meetings of more than three people.

Hutterite and Mennonite colonies in South Dakota were especially targeted because those groups — in addition to being heavily German — were also pacifists and refused to support the war. Persecution led to many colonies moving to Canada by the end of the 1910s.

Most Germans, however, served patriotically, Van Nuys said. That includes Vogt’s own German-immigrant ancestors.

“They worked very hard to be un-German as quickly as possible,” Vogt said.

“My mother’s generation didn’t speak German. We ate very little German food. Those were the types of things people did to deal with a certain kind of prejudice or questioning in World War I, as to who they were supportive of.”

Read about Sen. John Thune's proposal to build a national World War I Veterans Memorial in the Capital Journal story, Thune pushes for WWI memorial.