[8] Historians John English and Kenneth McLaughlin write that the common background of both employers and employees in Berlin allowed for a softening of racial and social animosity.

[17] Based on a model by sculptor Reinhold Begas, the community leaders George Rumpel and John Motz dedicated a bust of Kaiser Wilhelm I in Victoria Park in August 1897.

[19] Government support for the project was strong, Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier ensuring the bust entered Canada duty-free.

[39] Respected Berlin citizens, including businessman and politician Louis Jacob Breithaupt, held public meetings opposed to the decision.

[40] In his reply to the speech from the throne on 19 August 1914, Conservative MP Donald Sutherland expressed sympathy to the German people for "the dangers brought upon them by their ruling classes, by their oligarchic, insane, military government.

[22] The year before, Waterloo and Berlin, measured on a per capita basis, were first and second in Canada, respectively, in individual contributions to the Canadian Patriotic Fund.

[44] Local Professor F. V. Riecthdorf proclaimed, "I am a native German and former soldier ... My loyalty is to the British flag ... let our response to the Empire be immediate and sufficient!

"[45] Trying to lessen signs of disloyalty, in May 1915 the Berlin City Council asked for the appointment of a local Registrar of Enemy Aliens, though this request was denied after being deemed unnecessary.

"[58] In a printed address to Canada, Lieutenant Stanley Nelson Dacey wrote:[37] You have creatures in your midst who say success to the Kaiser, and to hell with the King; all I can say is, round up this element into the detention camps, for they are unworthy of British citizenship and should be placed where they belong ... the showing that the physically fit young men of North Waterloo have made is so rotten that I have heard an outside businessman say to a traveller from a Berlin wholesale house, "I'll not buy another damned article manufactured in that German town.

[63] Tappert became a controversial figure locally for several actions, including his continued use of German in religious services, telling his children to avoid saluting the Union Jack and to not sing "God Save the King", his refusal to contribute to the Patriotic Fund and his public doubting of anti-German propaganda.

[19][note 5] A witness recalled: "Within minutes, Tappert was being dragged behind horses through the streets, his face bloodied, his body twisting as he fell into unconsciousness while the pavement scraped off his flesh.

The start of war brought many contracts to the city's manufacturers, but business leaders worried the "made in Berlin" label on their products would hurt sales.

[61] Canada's Minister of Justice, Charles Doherty, refused to reimburse the club for the damages, explaining that doing so would engender further racial disharmony.

[61] William Breithaupt, head of Berlin's library board and the president of the Waterloo Historical Society, was outspoken in his opposition to the name change.

[81] A regimental band and crowd walked through Berlin and gathered in front of August Lang's home, a major opponent of the name change.

[77] On 1 June, the Berlin City Council thanked the committee and decided to assemble its own list, offering cash prizes for winning suggestions.

[84] On 5 June, Britain's Secretary of State for War, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, drowned aboard HMS Hampshire after it struck a mine while en route to Russia.

[77] An editorial in Stratford, Ontario's Herald complained: "No name of a martyr of this war should be allowed to be appropriated where the motive is largely commercial.

[86] Regarding the low voter turnout, the Berlin News Record commented: "The outstanding feature was the absolute indifference displayed by the ratepayers.

[95] On 11 July, the city council endorsed a petition by the newly formed Citizens' League, garnering 2,068 signatures opposing the name change.

[89] When the results were announced, the British League, citizens and soldiers of the 118th Battalion gathered outside the Berlin News Record office, as well as mayor-elect David Gross's home and button factory.

[104] On 24 November 1917, Prime Minister Robert Borden visited Kitchener to generate support for his Military Service Act and to campaign for his Unionist Party in the upcoming federal election.

[105] Two months earlier, his government passed the Wartime Elections Act which, among other things, disenfranchised voters expected to be opposed to conscription.

[109] Newspapers in other Ontario cities – including Kingston, Guelph and Brantford – pointed to the refusal as evidence that, though Kitchener had changed its name, the residents remained loyal to Germany over Canada.

"[119] German animus for the Union Government and the Conservative Party persisted for generations,[120] while Euler's win reinforced outside perceptions that the residents of Kitchener and Waterloo remained loyal to Germany despite the name change.

[126] Many German-Canadians anglicized their names – changing Braun to Brown and Schmidt to Smith, for example – and instead referred to their heritage as Dutch or Austrian.

[129] In the early 1930s, Kitchener and Waterloo largely rejected local fascist movements inspired by Germany's rising Nazi Party.

[132] Historian William Campbell credits the lack of anti-German sentiment to a broadening of the Canadian identity following the First World War, extending beyond the dominant English and French cultures.

[108] English & McLaughlin point to the automobile and new forms of mass media – such as movies, the radio and magazines – as expanding culture in Kitchener and bringing it more in alignment with Canada and North America as a whole.

[139] In 1992, author William Chadwick examined the name change in a work of popular history, published as The Battle for Berlin, Ontario: An Historical Drama.