Vikings to U-Boats explores the colony's hidden multicultural history, examining both sides of the German-Newfoundland/Labrador experience. From first recorded contacts to the end of World War II, Bassler traces the lives of German-speaking fishermen, musicians, doctors, engineers, and entrepreneurs. He reconstructs the historical reality behind U-Boat and spy stories and analyses the change in status of the colony's German-speaking people from neighbours to "enemy aliens." Vikings to U-Boats challenges the assumption that the history of Newfoundland and Labrador was shaped solely by English-speakers from the British Isles.

Gerhard P. Bassler is professor emeritus at Memorial University of Newfoundland and a specialist in modern German history and Canadian migration history.His previous books include Vikings to U-Boats: The German Experience in Newfoundland and Labrador (2006), Alfred Valdmanis and the Politics of Survival (2000), Sanctuary Denied: Refugees from the Third Reich and Newfoundland Immigration Policy, 1906–1949 (1992), and The German Canadian Mosaic Today and Yesterday (1991).

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