German Americans
German Americans (German: Deutschamerikaner, pronounced [ˈdɔʏtʃʔameʁɪˌkaːnɐ]) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. The 2020 census results showed over 44,978,546 Americans self-identifying as German alone or in combination with another ancestry. This includes 15,447,670 who chose German alone.[7]
According to the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy in 2012, "German-Americans make up the largest self-reported ancestry group within the United States, accounting for roughly 49 million people and approximately 17% of the population of the U.S."[8] This represents an increase from 2010 when there were 45.7 million German Americans in the nation.[9] German Americans account for about one third of the total population of people of German ancestry in the world.[10][11]
The first significant groups of German immigrants arrived in the British colonies in the 1670s, and they settled primarily in the colonial states of Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia.
The Mississippi Company of France later transported thousands of Germans from Europe to what was then the German Coast, Orleans Territory in present-day Louisiana between 1718 and 1750.[12] Immigration to the U.S. ramped up sharply during the 19th century.
There is a German belt consisting of areas with predominantly German American populations that extends across the United States from eastern Pennsylvania, where many of the first German Americans settled, to the Oregon coast.
Pennsylvania, with 3.5 million people of German ancestry, has the largest population of German-Americans in the U.S. and is home to one of the group's original settlements, the Germantown section of present-day Philadelphia, founded in 1683. Germantown is also the birthplace of the American antislavery movement, which emerged there in 1688.
Germantown also was the location of the Battle of Germantown, an American Revolutionary War battle fought between the British Army, led by William Howe, and the Continental Army, led by George Washington, on October 4, 1777.
German Americans were drawn to colonial-era British America by its abundant land and religious freedom, and were pushed out of Germany by shortages of land and religious or political oppression.[13] Many arrived seeking religious or political freedom, others for economic opportunities greater than those in Europe, and others for the chance to start fresh in the New World. The arrivals before 1850 were mostly farmers who sought out the most productive land, where their intensive farming techniques would pay off. After 1840, many came to cities, where German-speaking districts emerged.[14][15][16]
German Americans established the first kindergartens in the United States,[17] introduced the Christmas tree tradition,[18][19] and introduced popular foods such as hot dogs and hamburgers to America.[20]
The great majority of people with some German ancestry have become Americanized; fewer than five percent speak German. German-American societies abound, as do celebrations that are held throughout the country to celebrate German heritage of which the German-American Steuben Parade in New York City is one of the most well-known and is held every third Saturday in September. Oktoberfest celebrations and the German-American Day are popular festivities. There are major annual events in cities with German heritage including Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, and St. Louis.
Around 180,000 permanent residents from Germany were living in the United States in 2020.[21]
American wartime propaganda depicted the bloodthirsty German "Hun" soldier as an enemy of civilization, with his eyes on America from across the Atlantic.
German American farmer John Meints of Minnesota was tarred and feathered in August 1918 for allegedly not supporting war bond drives.
Assimilation[edit]
The apparent disappearance of German American identity[edit]
German Americans are no longer a conspicuous ethnic group.[172] As Melvin G. Holli puts it, "Public expression of German ethnicity is nowhere proportionate to the number of German Americans in the nation's population. Almost nowhere are German Americans as a group as visible as many smaller groups. Two examples suffice to illustrate this point: when one surveys the popular television scene of the past decade, one hears Yiddish humor done by comedians; one sees Polish, Greek, and East European detective heroes; Italian-Americans in situation comedies; and blacks such as the Jeffersons and Huxtables. But one searches in vain for quintessentially German-American characters or melodramas patterned after German-American experiences. ... A second example of the virtual invisibility is that, though German Americans have been one of the largest ethnic groups in the Chicago area (numbering near one-half million between 1900 and 1910), no museum or archive exists to memorialize that fact. On the other hand, many smaller groups such as Lithuanians, Poles, Swedes, Jews, and others have museums, archives, and exhibit halls dedicated to their immigrant forefathers".[173]: 93–94 [a]
But this inconspicuousness was not always the case. By 1910, German Americans had created their own distinctive, vibrant, prosperous German-language communities, referred to collectively as "Germania". According to historian Walter Kamphoefner, a "number of big cities introduced German into their public school programs".[175] Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland and other cities "had what we now call two-way immersion programs: school taught half in German, half in English".[175] This was a tradition which continued "all the way down to World War I".[175] According to Kamphoefner, German "was in a similar position as the Spanish language is in the 20th and 21st century"; it "was by far the most widespread foreign language, and whoever was the largest group was at a definite advantage in getting its language into the public sphere".[175] Kamphoefner has come across evidence that as late as 1917, a German version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" was still being sung in public schools in Indianapolis.[175]
Cynthia Moothart O'Bannon, writing about Fort Wayne, Indiana, states that before World War I "German was the primary language in the homes, churches and parochial schools"[176] of German American settlers. She states that "Many street signs were in German. (Main Street, for instance, was Haupt Strasse.) A large portion of local industry and commercial enterprises had at its roots German tooling and emigres. (An entire German town was moved to Fort Wayne when Wayne Knitting Mills opened.) Mayors, judges, firefighters and other community leaders had strong German ties. Social and sporting clubs and Germania Park in St. Joseph Township provided outlets to engage in traditional German activities".[176] She goes on to state that "The cultural influences were so strong, in fact, that the Chicago Tribune in 1893 declared Fort Wayne a 'most German town'."[176] Melvin G. Holli states that "No continental foreign-born group had been so widely and favorably received in the United States, or had won such high marks from its hosts as had the Germans before World War I. Some public opinion surveys conducted before the war showed German Americans were even more highly regarded than immigrants from the mother culture, England".[173]: 106 Holli states that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra once "had so many German-American musicians that the conductor often addressed them in the German language",[173]: 101 and he states that "No ethnic theater in Chicago glittered with such a classy repertory as did the German-American theater, or served to introduce so many European classical works to American audiences".[173]: 102
Impact of World War I on German Americans[edit]
The transition to the English language was abrupt, forced by federal, state and local governments, and by public opinion, when the U.S. was at war with Germany in 1917–18. After 1917, the German language was seldom heard in public; most newspapers and magazines closed; churches and parochial schools switched to English. Melvin G. Holli states, "In 1917, the Missouri Synod's Lutheran Church conference minutes appeared in English for the first time, and the synod's new constitution dropped its insistence on using the language of Luther only and instead suggested bilingualism. Dozens of Lutheran schools also dropped instruction in the German language. English-language services also intruded themselves into parishes where German had been the lingua franca. Whereas only 471 congregations nationwide held English services in 1910, the number preaching in English in the synod skyrocketed to 2,492 by 1919. The German Evangelical Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other states also anglicized its name by dropping German from the title".[173]: 106 Writing about Fort Wayne, Indiana, Cynthia Moothart O'Bannon states that, in the First World War, "Local churches were forced to discontinue sermons in German, schools were pressured to stop teaching in German, and the local library director was ordered to purchase no more books written in German. The library shelves also were purged of English-language materials deemed sympathetic to or neutral on Germany. Anti-German sentiment forced the renaming of several local institutions. Teutonia Building, Loan & Savings became Home Loan & Savings, and The German-American bank became Lincoln National Bank & Trust Co."[176] She continues that "in perhaps the most obvious bend to prevailing trends, Berghoff Brewery changed its motto from "A very German brew" to "A very good brew," according to "Fort Wayne: A Most German Town," a documentary produced by local public television station WFWA, Channel 39".[176] Film critic Roger Ebert wrote how "I could hear the pain in my German-American father's voice as he recalled being yanked out of Lutheran school during World War I and forbidden by his immigrant parents ever to speak German again".[177]
Melvin G. Holli states, regarding Chicago, that "After the Great War it became clear that no ethnic group was so de-ethnicized in its public expression by a single historic event as German Americans. While Polish Americans, Lithuanian Americans, and other subject nationalities underwent a great consciousness raising, German ethnicity fell into a protracted and permanent slump. The war damaged public expression of German ethnic, linguistic, and cultural institutions almost beyond repair".[173]: 106 He states that, after the war, German ethnicity "would never regain its prewar public acclaim, its larger-than-life public presence, with its symbols, rituals, and, above all, its large numbers of people who took pride in their Teutonic ancestry and enjoyed the role of Uncle Sam's favored adopted son".[173]: 107 He states "A key indicator of the decline of "Deutschtum" in Chicago was the census: the number identifying themselves to the census-taker as German-born plummeted from 191,000 in 1910 to 112,000 in 1920. This drop far exceeds the natural mortality rate or the number who might be expected to move. Self-identifiers had found it prudent to claim some nationality other than German. To claim German nationality had become too painful an experience".[173]: 106 Along similar lines, Terrence G. Wiley states that, in Nebraska, "around 14 percent of the population had identified itself as being of German-origin in 1910; however, only 4.4 percent made comparable assertions in 1920. In Wisconsin, the decline in percentage of those identifying themselves as Germans was even more obvious. The 1920 census reported only 6.6. percent of the population as being of German-origin, as opposed to nearly 29 percent ten years earlier ... These statistics led Burnell ... to conclude that: "No other North American ethnic group, past or present, has attempted so forcefully to officially conceal their ... ethnic origins. One must attribute this reaction to the wave of repression that swept the Continent and enveloped anyone with a German past"".[178]
The Catholic high schools were deliberately structured to commingle ethnic groups so as to promote ethnic (but not interreligious) intermarriage.[179] German-speaking taverns, beer gardens and saloons were all shut down by Prohibition; those that reopened in 1933 spoke English.
The following German international schools are in operation in the United States, serving German citizens, Americans, and other U.S. residents: