When Max Fruhauf, a successful Cincinnati liquor dealer, read his morning newspaper on September 20, 1918, his mind might have raced to his own situation. A top federal official had testified before a U.S. Senate Committee that: “The organized liquor traffic of the country is a vicious interest because it has been unpatriotic, because it has been pro-German in its sympathies and its conduct.” Fruhauf, son of German immigrants, ensconced in a strongly German city, had packaged his flagship whiskey with an unmistakeable German design.
Fruhauf called his flagship brand “Helmet Rye,” merchandising it, as shown above, in a ceramic “nip” with the distinctive shape of a German military helmet. Called a Pickelhaube (from the German Pickel, "point" or "pickaxe", and Haube, “bonnet,” a general word for headgear), the helmet is marked by a substantial spike at the crown. By royal order in 1842 Frederick William IV introduced the helmet for general use by the Prussian infantry. 
In addition to the spike finial, perhaps the most recognizable feature of the Pickelhaube was the ornamental front plate that denoted the regiment's province or state. The most common design consisted of a large, spread-winged eagle, the emblem used by Prussian forces. A closeup view of Fruhuaf’s bottle reveals an attempt to replicate closely the Prussian model.
When Max first conceived the shape early in the 20th Century, a majority of Cincinnati residents were either born in Germany or had German parents. Residents had a two in five chance of meeting someone who could speak to them in German. The city had three German morning newspapers and one evening paper. German was taught in all 47 schools. Seventy churches held services completely or partly in German. In 1915 there were 110 German societies in Cincinnati for mutual aid, athletics, trade unions, sharpshooters, music, culture and charity.
Everything changed virtually overnight when the United States declared war against Germany on April 6, 1917. All over America, individuals, groups, and politicians took actions aimed at ridding the country of German culture and influence. Among the more absurd moves, sauerkraut became “liberty cabbage”; hamburgers were “liberty steaks” and dachshunds “liberty pups.” Some Americans advocated forbidding orchestras to perform music by Beethoven, Bach, or Mozart.
As demonstrated on wartime posters, the Hun with the pointy helmet had become the symbol of the reviled enemy. Men like A. Mitchell Palmer, Federal Custodian of Alien Property, the official quoted above, were calling out Germans in the liquor trade as traitorous.
Shown here, Palmer also told Congress: “When the traffic, doomed as it is, undertakes and seeks by these secret methods to control party nominations, party machinery, whole political parties, and thereby control the government of the Nation and State, it is time the people know the truth.”
As he embarked on his life’s journey, Fruhauf obviously had no idea that his ethnicity and chosen occupation would be combined in a way that would be considered traitorous to America. Max was born in January 1875 in Nebraska, Indiana, an unincorporated hamlet in the southeastern part of the state, the son of Moses and Mary Fruhauf. When he was about five, his family moved 63 miles directly east to Cincinnati. The 1880 Federal census records the Fruhaufs living in Ward Nine. Moses was listed as a merchant. Mary was keeping house with the help of a German serving girl. Max was one of five children, three girls and two boys.
Max was educated in Cincinnati, likely in one of the German schools. The next two decades in his life have gone largely unrecorded. By the 1900 census he was living with his widowed mother, a brother and sister, and a servant. He already was proprietor of his own liquor house, called Max Fruhauf & Co., located at 212 East Second Street in Cincinnati. Business must have been good from the outset, soon requiring larger quarters. In 1903 he moved to 328-330 Main Street, his location for the remaining years of the firm.
In addition to Helmet Rye, Fruhauf featured other brands, including: ”Linwood Sour Mash,” "Royal Age Rye,” "Whitlock Malt,” and “Rover Rye” and “Rover Fine Whiskey,” each of the last two featuring a sad-eyed dog on the label. Of these whiskeys Fruhauf trademarked only Helmet Rye in 1906.
Max’s emphasis on this brand is evident by the flasks, carafes, shot glasses and mini-jugs to be found with that designation. The flasks would have been used in retail sales and the carafes for serving whiskey in restaurants and aboard trains. The shot glasses and mini-jugs advertising Helmet Rye were giveaway items for special customers. Note the variety of helmet images used by Fruhauf.
In the final analysis, Fruhauf may not have unduly concerned about the attack from A. Mitchell Palmer. He already would have been expecting to close down his liquor business as the result of Ohio voting to go “dry” the previous year.
He and his family then moved to Detroit, Michigan where the 1920 Federal Census recorded Max, now 45 years old, working as the vice president of a cigar factory. With him was his wife Alma (nee Haas), a woman 10 years younger, their nine-year old son, Max Junior, and four household servants including one man designated as a janitor. In addition to frequent trips to New York City marketing his company’s cigars, Fruhauf essentially would spend the rest of his life in Detroit. He was buried there after his death at the age of 54 in May 1929.
By the time of Fruhauf’s death, World War One was well over. Liberty cabbage again had become sauerkraut. A. Mitchell Palmer, now the U.S. Attorney General, had ceased bashing Germans in favor of raids on so-called “radicals.” The Pickelhaube had been phased out of the German army. And World War Two was just around the corner.
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