German Americans

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The first Germans arrived 1608 at James Fort
Johannes Fleischer (1582–1608)

German Americans (German: Deutschamerikaner) are citizens of the United States of ethnic German ancestry and form the largest ethnic group of whites in the United States, accounting for 17 % of the U.S. population.[1] Rarely the term is also used for US-Americans living or working in Germany, if they also have German citizenship.

History

German-born champions of space exploration at Cape Canaveral,: Dr.-Ing. Kurt Heinrich Debus (1908–1983), director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, points to a television monitor in the Launch Complex 37 blockhouse during the liftoff of a Saturn 1 rocket for the SA-8 mission on 25 May 1965. To his left are Dr. Hans F. Gruene, deputy director of Launch Operations at Kennedy, Dr. Wernher Freiherr von Braun, director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and Dipl.-Ing. Dr. h. c. mult. Eberhard Friedrich Michael Rees (1908–1998), deputy director for Research and Development at Marshall. All were brought to the U.S. from Germany after World War II and each played crucial roles in America’s space program.[2]
German American film star Jonathan "Jon" Vincent Voight (left) and German American politician Donald Trump, 2019
German American Heritage Month 2020.jpg
German-American Day IV.gif

Several Germans arrived in October 1608 for the "Virginia Company of London" at James Fort (Fort Jakob), which would later become Jamestown (German: Jakobsstadt). In 1620, the next Germans arrived. The first significant numbers arrived in the 1680s in New York and Pennsylvania. The Germans founded Germantown (German: Deitscheschteddel), Pennsylvania in 1683.

Some eight million German immigrants entered the United States of America since then. Immigration continued in substantial numbers during the 19th century; the largest number of arrivals came 1840–1900. By 1914, some 5.5 million German immigrants had entered the United States. Between 1920 and 1932 nearly 430,000 more Germans (some may have actually been Jews) came to America many of them veterans of the First World War.[3]

Germans form the largest group of immigrants coming to the U.S., outnumbering the Irish and English.[4] Some arrived seeking religious or political freedom, others for economic opportunities greater than those in Europe, and others simply for the chance to start afresh in the New World. California and Pennsylvania have the largest populations of German origin, with over six million German Americans residing in the two states alone.[5]

Over 50 million people in the United States identify German as their ancestry. In the 1990 U.S. census, 58 million Americans claimed to be solely or partially of German descent.[6] In Pennsylvania, English and German were co-official languages until around the time of World War I.[7]

Jamestown

Johannes Fleischer (1607)

Johannes Fleischer the Younger (der Jüngere; b. 21 October 1582 in Breslau) was among the first individuals from Germany to reach North America, and he was the first physician and academically trained botanist in New England. Fleischer was the eldest son of the Breslau clergyman of the same name, Johannes Fleischer. His mother died when he was five years old, and his father when he was eleven. He initially studied at the Brandenburg University of Frankfurt an der Oder and subsequently attended the University of Basel, where he studied under the physician and botanist Caspar Bauhin. Bauhin later listed him among the collaborators on his book *Prodromos theatri botanici* (Preliminaries to the Botanical Encyclopedia), published in 1620. In 1606, he was awarded a doctorate in medicine.

He was the only non-Briton among the 105 men who, on 13/14 May 1607—acting on behalf and at the expense of the Virginia Company of London—sailed into Chesapeake Bay aboard the three ships "Susan Constant", "Godspeed", and "Discovery"; there, along the James River, under the command of Captain John Smith (1580–1631), they founded Jamestown (Virginia), the first permanently settled English colony in North America (13 years before the Pilgrims). Fleischer’s interest and assigned task lay in exploring the flora of the new colony and assessing its potential utility as medicinal plants.

Due to the harsh conditions in Jamestown, Fleischer was unable to take the intended initial steps in botanical research in North America. By January 1608, fewer than 40 of the 104 men (the 105th passenger died during the four-month journey) had survived. The primary causes of death were dysentery, typhoid fever, and saltwater poisoning. In the summer of 1608, Fleischer, too, passed away.[8][9][10]

Ricardo Duchesne

Retired professor and author Dr. phil. Ricardo Duchesne wrote on 13 April 2026 at x.com:

The most neglected fact about the making of the United States is the immense-unsurpassed contributions of Germans. Germans represent the single largest European group, accounting for 14.7 % of all European immigrants. German immigrants and their descendants brought to American society a "maker" ethos . They literally made up America's industrial and agricultural backbone, engaged not in journalism, movies, fashion – but in manly pursuits (furniture, machining, farming, engineering). German immigrants excelled in precision machine tool industries, civil and mechanical engineering, building railroads, bridges, and infrastructure. They played a key role in developing rocketry for Apollo missions, and modernizing agricultural techniques (Wisconsin became "America's Dairyland" due to German settlers). Germans gave Americans the kindergarten system, the Christmas tree tradition, hot dogs, hamburgers, the major beers, NASA and moon landings, and the best football players. Why is everyone afraid to affirm this heritage? America, after all, was conceived as a synthesis of 4 traditions:
1) Classical Greek philosophy with its standard of actualizing the highest in human nature;
2) Roman republican government and rule of the best through an aristocratic division of powers among three branches of government;
3) Christian/Anglo Protestant morals;
4) Germanic aristocratic ethos of honor and primordial freedom.
But the Germanic side was rejected after WWII; Christianity was transmuted into "Judeo-Christianity", the Greek-Roman side was reduced to "democracy" and "civil rights" for blacks.

German American Day

Main article: German-American Day

German-American Day is a holiday in the United States, observed annually on 6 October. The holiday, which celebrates German American heritage, commemorates the date in 1683 when 13 German families from Krefeld near the Rhine landed in Philadelphia. These families subsequently founded Germantown, Pennsylvania, the first German settlement in the original thirteen American colonies.[11] Originally celebrated in the nineteenth century, German-American Day died out in World War I as a result of the anti-German sentiment that prevailed at the time. The holiday was revived in 1983.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed 6 October as German-American Day to celebrate and honor the 300th anniversary of German American immigration and culture to the United States.[12] On 6 August 1987, Congress approved S.J. Resolution 108, designating 6 October 1987, as German-American Day. It became Public Law 100-104 when President Reagan signed it on 18 August. A proclamation (#5719) to this effect was issued 2 October 1987 by President Reagan in a formal ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, at which time the President called on Americans to observe the Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

See also

Further reading

  • Carl Frederick Wittke (1892–1971): Der Terror gegen die Deutschen in den Vereinigten Staaten, 1917-1918, in "German-Americans and the World War, with special emphasis of Ohio's German-language press", Columbus, Ohio 1936, pp. 143-196
  • Michael F. Connors The Development of Germanophobia
  • Karl J. R. Arndt[13] / May E. Olson: The German Language Press of the Americas, 1732-1968 – History and Bibliography, Vol. I: United States of America (Munich: Verlag Dokumentation, 1976)
  • Watson, Peter, German Genius - Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century,, Simon & Schuster, London, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-74328-553-7
  • Charles Thomas Johnson: The National German-American Alliance, 1901-1918 – Cultural Politics and Ethnicity in Peace and War, Western Michigan University, 1997
  • Christoph Strupp / Birgit Zischke / Kai Dreisbach: GERMAN AMERICANA, 1800–1955, 2005

External links

Encyclopedias

Museums

References

  1. ↑ Academy for Cultural Diplomacy; The 2000 census gives 15.2 % or 42.8 million. The 1990 census had 23.3 % or 57.9 million.
  2. ↑ Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus — Champions of Space Exploration (Archive)
  3. ↑ Waking to Danger: Americans and National Socialist Germany, 1933-1941, By Robert A. Rosenbaum, page 70
  4. ↑ Adams, J.Q.; Pearlie Strother-Adams (2001). Dealing with Diversity. Chicago, IL: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. 0-7872-8145-X. 
  5. ↑ German Immigrants in the United States
  6. ↑ Chronology : The Germans in America (European Reading Room, Library of Congress)
  7. ↑ German or English? "Some states mandated English as the exclusive language of instruction in the public schools, while Pennsylvania and Ohio in 1839 were first in allowing German as an official alternative, even requiring it on parental demand."
  8. ↑ Johann Heinrich Zedler: Great Complete Universal Lexicon of All Sciences and Arts, Volume 9, Leipzig 1735, Column 1211
  9. ↑ German Settlers in Jamestown, FAZ, 2 May 2007
  10. ↑ Ein Ereignis, das Weltgeschichte schrieb, Local History and Heritage Association for Heinade-Hellental-Merxhausen
  11. ↑ German-American Day: A Short History (archive)
  12. ↑ Anniversary Year of German Settlement in America, By the President of the United States of America, January 20, 1983
  13. ↑ Karl John Richard Arndt was a Professor of German at Clark University from 1950 to 1991. He served as Chief of the Religious Affairs Division of the U.S. Military Government for Germany in Stuttgart from 1945 to 1949. During this time he collected his "War, Political, Historical and Exile Literature Library" of some 490 books and pamphlets. The collection provides an insight into how the Germans saw their time politically and historically during the years preceding Hitler, during the Third Reich and during the occupation years.
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