German Americans

German Americans
Deutschamerikaner

Babe Ruth Kurt Vonnegut A few Notable German Americans: Albert Einstein · John Jacob Astor · Carl Schurz John Joseph Pershing · Herbert Hoover · Babe Ruth Dwight D. Eisenhower · Wernher von Braun · Kurt Vonnegut
Regions with significant populations
The Midwest Pennsylvania
Languages
American English, German
Religion
Protestant (Lutheran, Reformed, Mennonite, Amish, and others) Roman Catholic Jewish Non-religious Others
Related ethnic groups
Ethnic Germans Austrian Americans Scandinavian Americans Dutch Americans German Canadians German diaspora

German Americans (Template:Lang-de) are citizens of the United States of German ancestry, with traditions and self-identity based on German language and culture. They currently form the largest self-reported ancestry group in the United States, accounting for 50 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population. California and Texas have the largest populations of German origin, although upper Midwestern states, including North Dakota and Wisconsin, have the highest proportion of German-American population.

German was at one time widely spoken in the US; see German in the United States. There is a widely spread myth, called the Muhlenberg legend, that German was almost the official language of the US. This is not the case – English has always been more widely spoken, and the US has no official language.

The first Germans to arrive in the New World settled in the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608. It wasn’t until the 1680s, however, that significant numbers arrived, settling primarily in New York and Pennsylvania. Immigration continued in substantial numbers during the nineteenth century; with the largest number of arrivals coming between 1840 and 1900. Americans of German descent form the largest self-identified ancestry group in the U.S., outnumbering the Irish and English, with some eight million immigrants having come to the United States. Some arrived seeking religious or political freedom, others for economic opportunities greater than those in Europe, and others simply for the chance to start fresh in the New World.

German Americans have been influential in almost every field, from science to architecture, industry, sports, and entertainment. Some, like Brooklyn Bridge engineer John Augustus Roebling or architect Walter Gropius, left behind visible landmarks. Others, like Albert Einstein and Wernher von Braun, set intellectual landmarks. Still others, like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jack Nicklaus, and Doris Day, became sports or acting icons.

German American celebrations are held throughout the country, one of the most well-known being the German-American Steuben Parade in New York City, held every third Saturday in September. There are also major annual events in Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and other cities.

History

17th century

The first seeds of America were planted at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in what is today the United States of America. The first English settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607; the first German, in 1608. Germans were present in the American colonies from the very beginning of settlement. The Germans who came to Jamestown in 1608 and subsequently in 1620 were the forerunners of the largest nationality to immigrate to the United States since its founding in 1776.

The first Germans to reach the Jamestown Settlement came aboard the English vessel Mary and Margaret, captained by Christopher Newport. They left England around July 1608 and arrived in Virginia around 1 October — 12 years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. They consisted of up to five unnamed glassmakers and three carpenters or house builders — Adam, Franz and Samuel. They came in a group of about 70 new settlers, including several Polish makers of pitch and tar, soap ashes and potashes. Jamestown at that time consisted of nothing but a small wooden fort on a peninsula of the James River, which flows into Chesapeake Bay near modern Norfolk, Virginia.

Among the settlers was a Swiss German mineral prospector called William Volday by the English; his original name was probably Wilhelm Waldi. He accompanied Captain Newport on a search for precious metals shortly after their arrival. This was done by order of the organizers of the Colony, the Virginia Company of London, a stock company. The colonists believed that they had found a vein of silver beyond the falls of the James River, but they were forced to return when their supplies ran low.

The Germans and the Poles faced precarious conditions at James Fort, which had been built on the north bank of the James River by June 1607. More than half of the original 105 settlers were already dead by the first autumn.

The first permanent German settlement in the United States was Germantown, Pennsylvania, founded near Philadelphia on October 6 1683.

18th century

John Jacob Astor, detail of an oil painting by Gilbert Stuart, 1794. He was the first of the Astor family dynasty and the first millionaire in the United States, making his fortune in the fur trade and New York City real estate.

Large numbers of Germans migrated from the 1680s to 1760s. They migrated to America for a variety of reasons. The two causes for the migration were push factors: worsening opportunities for farm ownership in central Europe, persecution of some religious groups, and military conscription; and pull factors, with better economic conditions in the U.S. (especially the opportunity for farmers to own land).

Large sections of Pennsylvania and upstate New York attracted Germans. Most were Lutheran or German Reformed; many belonged to small religious sects such as the Moravians and Mennonites. German Catholics did not arrive in number until after the war of 1812.

In 1709 Protestant Germans from the Pfalz or Palatine region of Germany built rafts and traveled down the Rhine to Rotterdam. They lived in shantytown shacks with reed roofs in winter. The Dutch took up a collection to help them subsist until they could travel by ship to London. In London the Palatine families lived in tent cities in the parks until Protestant Queen Anne Stuart could help them get to her colonies in America. Four American Indian kings were also visiting London at that time. The Mohawk king offered to share land in the Mohawk valley of New York. The trip was long and difficult to survive due to the poor quality of food and water aboard ships and the infectious disease typhus, or Palatine fever. Many immigrants, particularly children, died before reaching America in June 1710.

The Palatine immigration of about 2100 people who survived, turned out to be the largest single immigration to America in the colonial period. Most first were settled along the Hudson River in work camps, to pay off their passage for the English. By 1711, seven villages had been established in New York on the Robert Livingston manor. In 1723 the Germans were the first Europeans allowed to buy land in the Mohawk Valley west of Little Falls. One hundred homesteads were allocated in the Burnetsfield Patent. By 1750, the Germans occupied a strip some 12 miles (19 km) long along both sides of the Mohawk River. The soil was excellent; some 500 houses had been built, mostly of stone; and the region prospered in spite of Indian raids. Herkimer was the best-known of the German settlements in a region long known as the "German Flats."

The most famous of the early German Palatine immigrants was editor John Peter Zenger, who in colonial New York City led the fight for freedom of the press in America. A later immigrant, John Jacob Astor, who came from Baden after the Revolutionary War, became the richest man in America from his fur trading and real estate investments in New York City.

Two waves of German colonists in 1714 and 1717 founded a large colony in Virginia called Germanna, located near Culpeper. Large German settlements were also formed in North Carolina, especially near Salem. There were also many German settlers around the Dutch (Deutsch) Fork area of South Carolina.

A thriving population of Germans lived upriver from New Orleans, Louisiana. They were attracted to the area through pamphlets such as J. Hanno Deiler's "Louisiana: A Home for German Settlers."

Between 1742 and 1753, roughly 1,000 Germans settled in Broad Bay, Massachusetts (now Waldoboro, Maine). Many of the colonists fled to Boston, Nova Scotia, and North Carolina after their houses were burned and their neighbors killed or carried into captivity by Native Americans. The Germans who remained found it difficult to survive on farming and eventually turned to the shipping and fishing industries.

The tide of German immigration to Pennsylvania swelled between 1725 and 1775, with many immigrants arriving as redemptioners or indentured servants. By 1775, Germans constituted about one-third of the population of Pennsylvania. The German farmers were renowned for their highly productive animal husbandry and agricultural practices. Politically, they were inactive until 1740, when they joined a Quaker-led coalition that took control of the legislature, which generally supported the American Revolution. Despite this, many of the German settlers were loyalists during the Revolution because they feared that their royal land grants would be taken away by a new republican government. The Germans, comprising Lutherans, Reformed, Mennonites, Amish, and other sects, developed a rich religious life with a strong musical culture. These Germans came to be known as the Pennsylvania Dutch (from Deutsch). There were few German Catholics in Pennsylvania before the 1810s.

Thousands of German soldiers came to the United States to support King George III in the American Revolutionary War. The largest group came from Hesse, and the soldiers are often referred to as Hessians. Many of the POWs who had fought as British auxilliaries settled in America. The Continental Congress lacked the money to send German prisoners back to Europe.

In the 1790 U.S. census, the first taken by the new country, Germans are estimated to have constituted nearly 9% of the white population in the United States.

19th century

German population density in the United States, 1872.

Heavy German immigration to the United States occurred between 1848 and World War I, during which time nearly six million Germans immigrated to the United States. From 1840 to 1880 Germans were the largest group of immigrants. Following the revolutions in German states in 1848, a wave of political refugees fled to America, and became known as Forty-Eighters. They included professionals, journalists and politicians. Prominent names included Carl Schurz and Henry Villard.

Cities

The cities of Milwaukee, Chicago, and New York were favored destinations. By 1900, the populations of the cities of Cleveland, Milwaukee, Hoboken and Cincinnati were all more than 40% German/German American. Dubuque and Davenport, Iowa, had even larger proportions, as did Omaha, Nebraska, where the proportion of German Americans was 57% in 1910. The Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati was one of the largest German Catholic-American cultural centers.

In the mid 1800s, German immigrants and German Americans increased rapidly in numbers in Milwaukee. When they entered city politics in great numbers, they became a vanguard among that city's Social Democratic Party (Socialists). They were heavily engaged in growing industries. Germans created the beer brewing industry under the Pabst, Schlitz, Miller, and Blatz family brands. German Americans in Milwaukee also brought their strong support of education. They established schools and teacher training seminaries (Töchter-Institut) to prepare students and teachers in proper German language training. By the late 19th century, the Germania Publishing Company was established, a publisher of books, magazines, and newspapers in German. In many other cities, such as Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Richmond, Virginia, German Americans were at least 30% of the population.

About half went to cities, the other half went to farms in the Midwest. By the mid-20th century German Americans were the predominant rural element in much of the Midwest, as they were more likely than others to remain on farms. Texas attracted many Germans who entered through Galveston, both those who came to farm and later immigrants who more rapidly took industrial jobs in cities such as Houston. As in Milwaukee, Germans in Houston built the brewing industry. They also established a German cemetery. By the 1920s, the first generation of college-educated German Americans were moving into the chemical and oil industries.

Germans also settled in cities in border states, such as Baltimore, Louisville and St. Louis. Few Germans went to the Deep South, though German Americans moving from surrounding rural areas made up a noteworthy part of the population of New Orleans. German Americans were the largest group of immigrants during the 19th century, outnumbering both English and Irish immigrants, making German Americans the largest ethnic group in the United States today.

Texas

The immigrants were as diverse as their countries of origin, except that very few aristocrats or upper middle class businessmen arrived. For example, consider Texas, with about 20,000 German Texans in the 1850s (from Handbook of Texas Online):

The Germans who settled Texas were diverse in many ways. They included peasant farmers and intellectuals; Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and atheists; Prussians, Saxons, Hessians, and Alsatians; abolitionists and slaveholders; farmers and townsfolk; frugal, honest folk and ax murderers. They differed in dialect, customs, and physical features. A majority had been farmers in Germany, and most arrived seeking economic opportunities. A few dissident intellectuals fleeing the 1848 revolutions sought political freedom. Traditional Lutherans from Saxony and some Wends, went for religious freedom. The Saxons founded the Missouri Synod, which remains a leading German American denomination.

The German settlements in Texas reflected their diversity. Even in the confined area of the Hill Country, each valley offered a different kind of German. The Llano valley had stern, teetotaling German Methodists, who renounced dancing and fraternal organizations; the Pedernales valley had fun-loving, hardworking Lutherans and Catholics who enjoyed drinking and dancing; and the Guadalupe valley had atheist Germans descended from intellectual political refugees. The scattered German ethnic islands were also diverse. These small enclaves included Lindsay in Cooke County, largely Westphalian Catholic; Waka in Ochiltree County, Midwestern Mennonite; Hurnville in Clay County, Russian German Baptist; and Lockett in Wilbarger County, Wendish Lutheran.

Civil War

Thousands of German Americans volunteered to fight for the Union in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Most had settled in northern states and no doubt adopted local attitudes. Having gone through their own revolution, many Germans had a strong revulsion against slavery. This was reflected in an incident on January 1, 1861, when the mostly German crowd made such a disturbance at a slave sale at the St. Louis courthouse that the sale price couldn't go above $8.00. The demonstration marked the last slave auction in St. Louis. Many Germans could see the parallel between slavery and serfdom in the old fatherland. The Germans were among the largest immigrant groups to participate in the Civil War: roughly 516,000 (23.4% of all Union soldiers) were German Americans, and about 216,000 were born in Germany. 36,000 of these native-born Germans enlisted from New York. Behind the Empire State came Missouri with 30,000 and Ohio with 20,000. A popular Union commander among Germans, Major General Franz Sigel was the highest-ranking German American officer in the Union Army, with many German immigrants claiming to enlist to "fight mit Sigel."

A Missouri man had once written the Confederate authorities that all they had to do to get rid of the Saint Louis Unionists was destroy the local breweries and seize all the beer: "… By this means the Dutch [Germans] will all die in a week and the Yankees will then run from this State."

- M. Jeff Thompson of Missouri

The identification of Germans with the Unionist-Abolitionist persisted into the 1870s in the so-called "Mason County War" in Texas. "Germans" were identified as Unionists while "Americans" were predominantly pro-Confederate. The conflict claimed some dozen lives before petering out. Now it is known chiefly because of the famous outlaw Johnny Ringo's participation on the anti-German side.

Voting

The German vote in 1900 was in doubt; they opposed the "repudiation" policy of Bryan (right poster) but also disliked the overseas "expansion" McKinley had delivered (left poster).

Relatively few Germans held office, but the men voted once they became citizens. In general, the Protestants and Jews leaned toward the Republican party and the Catholics were strongly Democratic. If prohibition was on the ballot, the Germans voted solidly against it. They strongly distrusted moralistic crusaders, who they called "Puritans." This included the temperance reformers and many Populists. The German community strongly opposed inflation and Free Silver, and voted heavily against crusader William Jennings Bryan in 1896. In 1900, however, many German Democrats returned to their party and voted for Bryan, perhaps because of President William McKinley's foreign policy.

Assimilation and World War I anti-German sentiment

After two or three generations, German Americans adopted mainstream American customs—some of which they heavily influenced—and switched their language to English. As one scholar concludes, "The overwhelming evidence … indicates that the German-American school was a bilingual one much (perhaps a whole generation or more) earlier than 1917, and that the majority of the pupils may have been English-dominant bilinguals from the early 1880s on." By 1914 the older members were attending German-language church services while the younger members were attending English services (in Lutheran, Evangelical and Catholic churches). In German parochial schools, the children spoke English among themselves, though some of their classes were in German. In 1917–18, after the US entry into WWI on the side of the British, nearly all German language instruction ended, as did most German-language church services.

During World War I, German Americans, especially those born abroad, were sometimes accused of being too sympathetic to the German Empire. Teddy Roosevelt denounced "hyphenated Americanism" and insisted that dual loyalties were impossible in wartime. A small minority came out for Germany, including H. L. Mencken, who believed the German democratic system was superior to American democracy. Similarly, Harvard psychology professor Hugo Münsterberg dropped his efforts to mediate between America and Germany and threw his efforts behind the German cause.

Several thousand vocal opponents of the war were imprisoned. Thousands were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty. The Red Cross barred individuals with German last names from joining in fear of sabotage. One man was hanged in Illinois, apparently for no other reason than that he was of German descent. The killers were found not guilty of the crime and the hanging was called an act of patriotism by a jury. A Minnesota minister was tarred and feathered when he was overheard praying in German with a dying woman. Some Germans during this time "Americanized" their names (e.g. Schmidt to Smith, Müller to Miller) and limited their use of the German language in public places. Newspapers also printed blacklists of names of Germans, including their addresses, headlined as German Enemy Aliens.

In Chicago Frederick Stock temporarily stepped down as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until he finalized his naturalization papers. Orchestras replaced music by Wagner with Berlioz on programs. In Cincinnati, reaction to anti-German sentiment during World War I caused the public library of Cincinnati to withdraw all German books from its shelves. German-named streets were renamed. For example, in Indianapolis, Germania Avenue was renamed Pershing Avenue — for a World War I general of German descent. In Iowa, the 1918 Babel Proclamation made speaking foreign languages in public illegal. Nebraska banned instruction in any language except English, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the ban illegal in 1923 (Meyer v. Nebraska).

World War II

Between 1931 and 1940, 114,000 Germans moved to the United States, many of whom - including Nobel prize winner Albert Einstein - were Jewish Germans or anti-Nazis fleeing government oppression. About 25,000 people became paying members of the pro-Nazi German American Bund during the years before the war. German Americans who had been born overseas were the subject of suspicion and discrimination during the war, although prejudice and sheer numbers meant they suffered as a group generally less than Japanese Americans. The Alien Registration Act of 1940 required 300,000 German-born U.S. resident aliens to register with the Federal government and restricted their travel and property ownership rights. Under the still active Alien Enemy Act of 1798, the United States government interned nearly 11,000 German Americans between 1940 and 1948. Most were not yet American citizens. Some of these were United States citizens; some were the parents of active military men. Civil rights violations occurred. Five hundred were arrested without warrant. Others were held without charge for months or interrogated without benefit of legal counsel. Convictions were not eligible for appeal. An unknown number of "voluntary internees" joined their spouses and parents in the camps and were not permitted to leave.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not hesitate to name Americans of German ancestry to top war jobs, including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and General Carl Spaatz. He appointed Republican Wendell Willkie as a personal representative. German Americans who had fluent German language skills were an important asset to wartime intelligence, and they served as translators and as spies for the United States. The war evoked strong patriotic sentiments among German Americans, few of whom by then had contacts with distant relatives in the old country.

German Americans in post-war years

Parking meter checker stands by his police vehicle which is imprinted with the German word for police (polizei). It is part of the town's highlighting its German ethnic origins. New Ulm, Minnesota, July 1974.

In the aftermath of WWII, millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from nations in eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia. Most resettled in Germany, but others came as refugees to the United States in the late 1940s and established cultural centers in their new homes. Donauschwabens, for instance, were ethnic Germans who had maintained language and customs after resettlement along the Danube in Hungary, later Yugoslavia (now Serbia). They were new immigrants to the US after the war.

From the 1970s on, time abated the anti-German sentiment aroused by World War II. Today, German Americans who immigrated after World War II share the same characteristics as any other Western European immigrant group in the U.S. They are mostly professionals and academics who have come for professional reasons. Germany has been a preferred destination for immigrants rather than a source of migrating peoples.

In the 1990 U.S. census, 58 million Americans claimed to be solely or partially of German descent. According to the 2005 American Community Survey, 50 million Americans have German ancestry. German Americans represent 17% of the total U.S. population and 26% of the non-Hispanic white population. Only 1.5 million Americans speak German.

There are about 5 million German Americans in the Heritage Society Germans from Russia, who came from Russia, many via Canada, to the United States.

Of the four major U.S. regions, German was the most-reported ancestry in the Midwest, second in the West, and third in both the Northeast and the South. German was the top reported ancestry in 23 states, and it was one of the top five reported ancestries in every state except Maine and Rhode Island.

Religious affiliations

German immigrants who arrived before the nineteenth century tended to be members of the "Evangelical Church" in Germany. They created the Reformed denomination (especially in New York and Pennsylvania), and the Evangelical denomination (strongest in the Midwest), which are now part of the United Church of Christ. Many immigrants joined different churches from those that existed in Germany. Protestants often joined the Methodist church.

Before 1800, communities of Amish, Mennonites, Moravians and Hutterites had formed and are still in existence today. Some still speak dialects of German, including Pennsylvania German, informally known as Pennsylvania Dutch (from Deutsch). The Amish, who were originally from southern Germany and Switzerland, arrived in Pennsylvania during the early 18th century. Amish immigration to the United States reached its peak between the years 1727 and 1770. Religious freedom was perhaps the most pressing cause for Amish immigration to Pennsylvania, which became known as a haven for persecuted religious groups.

1850 census map shows Lutheran population. Nearly all were German since few Scandinavians had arrived yet.

The Hutterites are another example of a group of German Americans who continue a lifestyle similar to that of their ancestors. Like the Amish, they fled persecution for their religious beliefs and came to the United States in 1870. Today Hutterites mostly reside in Montana, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, and the western provinces of Canada. Hutterites continue to speak German. Most are able to speak Standard German in addition to their dialect.

Immigrants from Germany in the mid- to late-1800s brought many different religions with them. The most numerous were Lutheran or Catholic, although the Lutherans were themselves split among different groups. The more conservative Lutherans comprised the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Other Lutherans formed a complex checkerboard of synods. In 1988 most of these merged, together with Scandinavian-based synods, into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Some 19th century immigrants, especially the "48ers", were secular, rejecting formal religion.

German American influence

Distribution of German Americans according to the 2000 census

Germans have contributed to a vast number of areas in American culture and technology. Baron von Steuben, a former Prussian officer, led the reorganization of the U.S. Army during the War for Independence and helped make the victory against British troops possible. The Steinway & Sons piano manufacturing firm was founded by immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg in 1853. German settlers brought the Christmas tree custom to the United States. The Studebakers built large numbers of wagons used during the Western migration; Studebaker, like the Duesenberg brothers, later became an important early automobile manufacturer. Carl Schurz, a refugee from the unsuccessful first German democratic revolution of 1848 (see also German Confederation), served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

After World War II, Wernher von Braun, and most of the leading engineers from the former German rocket base Peenemünde, were brought to the U.S. They contributed decisively to the development of U.S. military rockets, as well as rockets for the NASA space program.

The influence of German cuisine is seen in the cuisine of the United States throughout the country, especially regarding pastries, meats and sausages, and above all, beer. Frankfurters (or "wieners", originating from Frankfurt and Vienna, respectively), hamburgers, bratwurst, sauerkraut, and strudel are common dishes. German bakers introduced the pretzel. Germans have almost totally dominated the beer industry since 1850. Almost half of all current beer sales in the United States can be attributed to German immigrants Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch, who founded Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis in 1860. The revival of microbreweries is partly due to instruction from German beer masters. One of the areas in which the influence of German cuisine is strongest is the small town Midwest.

German-American celebrations, such as Oktoberfest, German-American Day and Von Steuben Day are held regularly throughout the country. One of the largest is the German-American Steuben Parade in New York City, held every third Saturday in September. There are also major annual events in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood, a traditional a center of the city's German population, in Cincinnati, where its annual Octoberfest Zinzinnati is the largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany and in Milwaukee, which celebrates its German heritage with an annual German Fest.

Skat, the most popular card game in Germany, is also played in areas of the United States with large German American populations, such as Wisconsin and Texas.

German American presidents

There have been two presidents whose fathers were of German descent: Dwight Eisenhower (original family name Eisenhauer and maternal side is also German/Swiss) and Herbert Hoover (original family name Huber). Presidents with maternal German ancestry include Richard Milhous Nixon (Nixon's maternal ancestors were Germans who anglicized Melhausen to Milhous). Other presidents with German ancestry include George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and Theodore Roosevelt.

German-American communities

Today, most German Americans have assimilated to the point that they no longer have readily identifiable ethnic communities, though there are still many metropolitan areas where German is the most reported ethnicity, such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and St. Louis.

German Americans are common in the U.S. Light blue indicates counties where persons of German ancestry form a plurality.

US communities with high percentages of people of German ancestry

The 10 US communities with the highest percentage of residents claiming German ancestry are:

1. Monterey Township, Putnam County, Ohio 83.6%%
2. Granville Township, Mercer County, Ohio 79.6%%
3. St. Henry, Ohio 78.5%
4. Germantown Township, Clinton County, Illinois 77.6%
5. Jackson Township, Dubois County, Indiana 77.3%
6. Washington Township, Mercer County, Ohio 77.2%
7. Saint Rose Township, Clinton County, Illinois 77.1%
8. Butler Township, Mercer County, Ohio 76.4%
9. Marion Township, Mercer County, Ohio 76.3%
10. Jennings Township, Putnam County, Ohio and Germantown, Illinois 75.6%

U.S. communities with the most residents born in Germany

The 10 U.S. communities with the highest proportion of residents born in Germany are:

1. Lely Resort, Florida 6.8%
2. Pemberton Heights, New Jersey 5.0%
3. Kempner, Texas 4.8%
4. Cedar Glen Lakes, New Jersey 4.5%
5. Alamogordo, New Mexico 4.3%
6. Sunshine Acres, Florida 4.2%
7. Leisureville, Florida 4.2%
8. Wakefield, Kansas 4.1%
9. Quantico, Virginia 4.0%
10. Crestwood Village, New Jersey 3.8%

See also

• Austrian American
• Ethnic German
• European American
• German American internment‎
• German-American relations
• German-Americans in the Civil War
• German in the United States
• German Palatines
• German Texan
• Germans in Omaha
• History of Germany
• Hyphenated American
• Immigration to the United States
• List of German Americans
• Pennsylvania Dutch

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External links

• American Languages: Our Nation's Many Voices: An online audio resource that presents German-American dialects from across the United States.
• Chronology: Germans in America
• Early German American Religious History
• Emigrant Letters to Germany (in German)
• Famous Americans of German, Austrian, or German-Swiss Ancestry
• The first Germans
• German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA Inc. Washington,DC
• Germans from Russia Heritage Society
• German-American links from University of Cincinnati
• The German-Hollywood Connection
• Germans in Chicago
• The Germantown Historical Society
• The Germany Society of Pennsylvania (oldest German Society in the U.S.)
• Government Resources
• How German Is American?
• Interactive German-History Map of Pittsburgh
• The Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies
• Milwaukee German-American Radio Program
• Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center
• The Pennsylvania German Society
• Reasons Germans Came to America
• Some German Contributions to Wisconsin Life
• The Speaker's House - The Home of Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg
• Zinzinnati Reflections