“F.W. Sallet and the Dakota Freie Presse”

Two German-language newspapers, Dakota Freie Press (DFP) and Neue Deutsche Presse (NDP), were located a short distance from here at 524 South Main Street. Owner and editor, Friedrich Wilhlem Sallet, emigrated from East Prussia and published DFP for Germans from Russia with NDP for Reich Germans. Aberdeen was a hub for both groups. Begun in 1874 in Yankton, the DFP was purchased by Sallet in 1903 and moved to Aberdeen in 1909.

1 Elihu Increase Oaks (1841-1912) [information from descendant, June 2020, in SHPO file].

The DFP was ‘the oldest and most widely distributed newspaper for Germans from Russia in the world.' It claimed to have subscribers in 1,500 communities on four continents. Sallet used the DFP as headquarters for a relief department which sent packages to famished Soviet villages in 1921 and four shiploads of dairy cows to supply milk to German orphanages. The DFP carried columns for people seeking addresses of ‘lost’ individuals, operated as a clearing house on land and immigration, and in 1924 became the first U.S. paper allowed re-entry into the Soviet Union. Wrongly suspected of being pro-German, Sallet and his NDP editor, J.F. Paul Gross, were arrested in 1918 and charged for not filing English translations of two articles with the post office. Following the trial, Gross was interned in Georgia while Sallet paid a fine and legal costs. Sallet was defended by Dorothy Rehfeld, the first female attorney to practice in S.D. The NDP ceased publication in January 1918. In 1920, the DFP moved to Minnesota and continued until 1954. After Sallet’s death in 1932, his nephew (Dr. Richard Dallet) became editor.

Erected 1990 by the Aberdeen Chapter, Deutscher Kultur Verein, of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS), the South Dakota State Historical Society and the Department of Transportation.

Aberdeen Chapter, GRHA

Dr. Harry A. Delker, President Board of Directors

Jacob Binfet Erwin Eichelberg Ben Feickert Marvin Warns Mike Heier

T.J. ‘Bud’ Schaffer Cathy Schatz Contributors

Father William Sherman Dr. La Vern J. Rippley Aberdeen American News Lust Chevrolet-Buick Ann Roesch Larson

Fred Roesch The Kesslers”

Brown County, Nicollet Park in Aberdeen (2006)