‘There is no room in our city for hate’: The re-emerged debates over the current and former place name of a Canadian city

Abstract

In 1916, Berlin, Ontario, disappeared off the map through a controversial vote. In its place came a new toponym named after British Secretary of State for War, Horatio Herbert Kitchener. Over a century later, a Facebook post about the city’s name gained local media attention. For the writer of the post, the name Kitchener was synonymous for hate due to the military figure’s role in expanding the use of internment camps during the Second Boer War. However, the Berlin–Kitchener controversy is far older than the recent news story; it goes back to 1991 when a news article brought up the subject a year after the city’s German-Canadian community celebrated the reunification of their cultural homeland. This article examines the original resurfaced controversy over the 1916 name change as well as the recently re-emerged debate. It is argued that the origins of both debates are markedly different and reflect different concerns.