List of German Americans

This is a list of notable German Americans.

German Americans (Deutschamerikaner) are citizens of the United States of ethnic German ancestry and form the largest ancestry group in the United States, accounting for 17% of US population. [cite web |url=http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/IPTable?_bm=y&-reg=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201:535;ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201PR:535;ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201T:535;ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201TPR:535&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201PR&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201T&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201TPR&-ds_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_&-TABLE_NAMEX=&-ci_type=A&-redoLog=false&-charIterations=047&-geo_id=01000US&-format=&-_lang=en|coauthors=United States Census Bureau|title=US demographic census|accessdate=2007-04-15; The 2000 census gives 15.2% or 42.8 million. The 1990 census had 23.3% or 57.9 million.] The first significant numbers arrived in the 1680s in New York and Pennsylvania. Some eight million German immigrants entered the United States since then. Immigration continued in substantial numbers during the 19th century; the largest number of arrivals came 1840–1900, when Germans formed the largest group of immigrants coming to the U.S., outnumbering even the Irish and English.cite book | last =Adams | first =J.Q. | authorlink = | coauthors =Pearlie Strother-Adams | year =2001 | title =Dealing with Diversity | publisher =Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company | location =Chicago, IL | id = 0-7872-8145-X] 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 [ [http://www.ugac.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=68 German-American Heritage Foundation ] ] . Over 50 million people in the United States identify German as their ancestry [ [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_caller=geoselect&-format=] "US Census Bureau, German ancestry - German: 50,764,352"] .

Americans of German descent live in nearly every American county, from the East Coast, where the first German settlers arrived in the 1600s, to the West Coast and in all the states in between. German-Americans and those Germans who settled in the US have been influential in most every field, from science, to architecture, to entertainment to commercial industry.

List

Art and literature

Architects

* Dankmar Adler - steel framed skyscrapers, leader of Chicago school of architecture [ [http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/KADE/merrill/lesson17.html] "German-born Pioneer architect in Chicago whose influence helped to bring about the architectural renaissance in Chicago at the turn of the century. (1844-1900)."]
* Julius Berndt - artist, architect and entrepreneur [ [http://www.newulmweb.com/citylights/hermann.html] "The New Ulm monument and statue of Hermann was first conceived by architect Julius Berndt of New Ulm."] [ "An emigrant from Silesia in Germany at age 20, Berndt brought artistic skills and ideas from his homeland to the new world."] [ [http://www.nujournal.com/viss/story/index.cfm?UID=4&SSID=9] "In 2000, The 106th Congress of the United States designated the Hermann Monument in New Ulm to be an official symbol of all citizens of German heritage. The Hermann Monument, erected in 1897, was built in memory of an ancient Teutonic hero, Hermann of Cherusci. Hermann is honored as the liberator of Germany from Rome in 9 A.D., and the father of Germanic independence."]
* Adolf Cluss - architect, builder of numerous public buildings in Washington D.C. [ [http://www.adolf-cluss.org/index.php?lang=en&topSub=specials&content=w&sub=5.2 Adolf Cluss, Architect: From Germany to America - The Book to Accompany the Exhibitions ] ]
* Walter Gropius - pioneering master of "modern" architecture, founder of Bauhaus [ [http://architecture.about.com/library/bl-gropius.htm] "Walter Gropius was a German architect and art educator"]
* John A. Roebling - architect, best known for designing the Brooklyn Bridge [ [http://www.inventionfactory.com/history/RHAgen/jarbio.html] "German-born architect famous for his wire rope suspension bridge designs, in particular, the design of the Brooklyn Bridge."]
* Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - pioneer of "modern" architecture, second Chicago school of architecture [ [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/mies_van_der_rohe_ludwig.html] "German-born Architect"]
* August Schoenborn - U.S. Capitol Dome [ [http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/KADE/merrill/lesson17.html] "German-born designer of the U.S. capitol dome. (c. 1817-1900)"]

Artists

* Anni Albers - printmaker, textile artist [ [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/albers_anni.html] "German-born American Textile Artist"]
* Albert Bierstadt - painter, best known for his large landscapes of the American West [ [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/bierstadt.html] "German-born Bierstadt, whose teachers had included the German Romantic painter Lessing..."]
* Rudolph Dirks - comic strip artist who created The Katzenjammer Kids [ [http://lambiek.net/artists/d/dirks_r.htm] "Born in Heide, Germany, Rudolph Dirks moved with his parents to Chicago at the age of seven."]
* Alfred Eisenstaedt - photographer and photojournalist best remembered for his photograph capturing the celebration of V-J DayFact|date=September 2008
* Andreas Feininger - photographer and writer on photographic techniqueFact|date=September 2008
* Lyonel Feininger - painter and caricaturistFact|date=September 2008
* Steven Fischer - film producer; cartoonistFact|date=September 2008
* George Grosz - prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group, known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s [ [http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog32/grosz/groszintro.htm] "early 20th century German artist, George Grosz."]
* Uli Herzner - fashion designer [ [http://www.bravotv.com/Project_Runway/season/3/bio/Uli_Herzner] "Ulrike Herzner (“Uli),” is a 35-year-old German native who currently resides in Miami Beach."]
* Hans Hofmann- abstract expressionist painter [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/hofmann.html] "German-American painter and teacher, often called the dean of abstract expressionism"]
* Ubbe Ert Iwwerks - Academy Award-winning animator, cartoonist and special effects technician, famous for his work for Walt DisneyFact|date=September 2008
* Harold Knerr - illustrator of The Katzenjammer Kids until 1949Fact|date=September 2008
* John Lewis Krimmel - America's first genre painterFact|date=September 2008
* Fritz Lang - film director, screenwriter and occasional film producerFact|date=September 2008
* J. C. Leyendecker - cartoonistFact|date=September 2008
* Emanuel Leutze - history painter best-known for his painting Washington Crossing the Delaware [ [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011005-15.html] "German Americans also have influenced greatly our artistic heritage. Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting, "Washington Crossing the Delaware River," remains a cherished and recognized symbol of American courage and determination."]
* Nicola Marschall - artist, designed the first Confederate flag and the Confederate uniform [ [http://www.archives.state.al.us/marschall/NM_dsth.html] "German-born artist, designed the first Confederate flag and the Confederate uniform."]
* Louis Maurer - lithographer [ [http://www.artnet.com/artist/11355/louis-maurer.html] "German/American, 1832-1932"]
* Thomas Nast - political cartoonist [ [http://www.germany.info/relaunch/culture/ger_americans/g_a_nast.html] "Thomas Nast - German-born Father of American Caricature..."]

* Erwin Panofsky - art historian [ [http://wwwa.britannica.com/eb/article-9058281] "German American art historian who gained particular prominence for his studies in iconography (the study of symbols and themes in works of art)."]
* Louis Prang - printer, lithographer and publisher, one of the famous "Forty-Eighters"Fact|date=September 2008
* Vinnie Ream - sculptor, famous for her work of Abraham Lincoln in the U.S. Capitol rotundaFact|date=September 2008
* Severin Roesen - still life painter [ [http://www.nbmaa.org/Gallery_htmls/roesen.html] "German native Severin Roesen is most famous for his abundant fruit..."]
* Charles M. Schulz - cartoonist best known worldwide for his Peanuts comic stripFact|date=September 2008
* Christian Schwartz - type designerFact|date=September 2008
* Otto Soglow - cartoonist best known for his comic strip The Little KingFact|date=September 2008
* Alfred Stieglitz - photographer instrumental in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculptureFact|date=September 2008
* Christopher Sauer - earliest type founder in America, published the first German Bible, 1743, and the first religious magazine in America, 1764 [ [http://www.pgs.org/culture.asp] "...earliest type founder in America, published the first Bible in German, 1743, and the first religious magazine in America, 1764. The magazine was published by Christopher Sauer II, who took over the printshop after his father died in 1758."]
* Henry William Stiegel - glassmaker and ironmasterFact|date=September 2008
* Kat Von D (Katherine von Drachenberg) - tattoo artist [ [http://www.tv.com/kat-von-d/person/416051/summary.html] "Though her father (Rene Von Drachenberg) is of German descent and her mother (Sylvia Galeano) has Spanish-Italian roots, both her parents are native Argentinians."] [ [http://www.katvond.net/bio.html] "Her father René Drachenberg and her mother Sylvia Galeano were both born in Argentina, though René's family origins were German and Sylvia's Spanish-Italian"]
* Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven - avant-garde, Dadaist artist and poetFact|date=September 2008
* Carl von Marr - painterFact|date=September 2008
* Baroness Hilla von Rebay - abstract painter, helped establish the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City [ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:German_noble_templates] "Freiin, under German Nobles"]

Authors and writers

* Kathy Acker - author [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/804/000048660/] "German Heritage"]
* Sade Baderinwa - news reporter/journalist
* Monika Bauerlein - co-editor of Mother Jones magazineFact|date=September 2008
* L. Frank Baum - author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator of The Wonderful Wizard of OzFact|date=September 2008
* Vicki Baum - writer [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index1.html Actors Directors from Germany, Austria, Switzerland - German-Hollywood Connection ] ]
* Richard Bock - sculptor and associate of Frank Lloyd WrightFact|date=September 2008
* Charles Bukowski - poet and novelist [ [http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2000/06/15/bukowski/index.html] "So when Bukowski, who was German-born, got along with this young..."]
* August Derleth - author of Sac Prairie saga, science fiction, mysteryFact|date=September 2008
* Theodore Dreiser - author of the naturalist school, known for dealing with the gritty reality of life [ [http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/authors/about_theodore_dreiser.html] "Part of a large German-American family, and the ninth of ten children, his childhood was marked by poverty." [http://college.hmco.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/modern/dreiser_th.html] "Theodore Dreiser was the son of a German Catholic immigrant father and a German-Moravian Mennonite mother."]
* Gottfried Duden - travel author [ [http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/GermAmChron.htm] "1829 - Gomried Duden's published travel report encourages thousands of Germans to come to America, especially Missouri"]
* Roger Ebert - Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic [ [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020412/REVIEWS/204120305/1023] "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."]
* Martin Ebon - author of non-fiction books from the paranormal to politics [ [http://www.martinebon.com/] "Born May 27,1917, in Hamburg, Germany; died February 11, 2006, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Came to United States in 1938; resided in New York City from 1938 to 2006."]
* George DiCaprio - writer, editor, and major west coast underground comic book distributorcite book|last=Catalano|first=Grace|authorlink=|coauthors=|title=Leonardo DiCaprio: Modern-Day Romeo|publisher=Dell Publishing Group|date=1997|location=New York, New York|pages=7-15|month=February|url=|id=ISBN 0-440-22701-1]
* Charles Follen - poet and patriot [ [http://cazoo.org/Germans/FrancisLieber.html] "Like Charles Follen and Carl Schurz, Lieber was a German revolutionary and patriot but only America allowed him to develop his talents to the full."]
* Bruno Frank - author, poet, dramatist and humanistFact|date=September 2008
* Isaac Kaufmann Funk - editor, lexicographer, publisher, and spelling reformerFact|date=September 2008
* Cork Graham - screenwriter, war correspondent, and author [The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War; DPP Inc. 2004]
* Ursula Hegi - novelistFact|date=September 2008
* Patricia Highsmith - novelist known for her psychological thrillers [ [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/highsm.htm] "Her father was of German descent and she did not meet him until she was twelve - the surname Highsmith was from her stepfather..."]
* Friedrich Hirth - sinologue [ [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001407315] "The two most distinguished German Sinologists at the turn of the century, Friedrich Hirth (1845-1927) and Berthold Laufer..."]
* Julia Kasdorf - poetFact|date=September 2008
* Siegfried Kracauer - film historian, sociologist and author [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_3.html#kr] "German-American film historian, sociologist and author, best known for his 1947 book From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. His Theory of Film (1960) was Kracauer's second influential, if also controversial, work. Born in Germany, the former editor of a Frankfurt newspaper and German film critic came to America in 1941. His studies concentrated on how cinema both influences and is influenced by social and economic conditions."]
* Howard Kurtz - journalist, blogger, author and media criticFact|date=September 2008
* Thomas Mann - Nobel prize-winning authorFact|date=September 2008
* Walter Lippman - writer, journalist, and political commentatorFact|date=September 2008
* H. L. Mencken - journalist [ [http://www.americanwriters.org/classroom/videolesson/clips26_mencken.asp] "Mencken came from a German-American neighborhood and family."]
* Henry Miller - writer and painter [ [http://www.jstor.org/pss/2711926] "...largely German-speaking neighborhood (Miller's grandparents had emigrated from Germany"]
* Anna Balmer Myers - author of Mennonite (Pennsylvania Dutch) novelsFact|date=September 2008
* Sylvia Plath - poet, novelist, and short story writer [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A688197] "In Lady Lazarus, Sylvia Plath does many things: she explores her guilt about being German during World War II..."]
* Joseph Pulitzer - publisher best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes and for originating yellow journalism [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/mtoz/pulitzer.html] "German-American, journalist, born in Makó, Hungary. Pulitzer immigrated to the U.S. in 1864 and served in the First New York Cavalry during the American Civil War. He became an American citizen in 1867, a reporter on a German daily, the Westliche Post, in Saint Louis."]
* Heinrich Armin Rattermann - author, poet, and historian [ [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/top3mset/3474816 Heinrich Armin Rattermann : German-American author, poet, and historian, 1832-1923 [WorldCat.org ] ]
* Wolfgang Reitherman - Disney animator and director [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0718627/ Wolfgang Reitherman ] ]
* Erich Maria Remarque - German-born author, naturalized U.S. citizenFact|date=September 2008
* Conrad Richter - Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter] ]
* Mary Roberts Rinehart - author [ [http://www.clpgh.org/exhibit/neighborhoods/northside/nor_n108.html North Side: People: Mary Roberts Rinehart ] ]
* Hope Rockefeller Aldrich - journalistFact|date=September 2008
* Charles Sealsfield - the pseudonym of Austrian-American author of novels and travelogues, Carl (or Karl) Anton Postl [ [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:16988890/Charles+Sealsfield+(1793-1864)~C~+German+and+America.html?refid=ency_topnm] "Charles Sealsfield (1793-1864): German and American novelist of the nineteenth century."]
* Curt Siodmak - screenwriter [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_5.html#sd] "German screenwriter for B-movies and classic monster movies such as The Wolf Man (1941), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and Son of Dracula (1943). He also wrote scripts for Berlin Express (1948) and Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1948). He went to Hollywood in 1938."]
* Gertrude Stein - author [ [http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/litmap/stein_gertrude_pa.htm] "She is the youngest of five surviving children of Daniel Stein and Amelia Keyser. Both parents belonged to German Jewish -mmigrant families who settled in Baltimore, Maryland before the Civil War."] [ [http://www.pbase.com/empirebuilder/image/58373068] "Allegheny City (Deutschtown), Pittsburgh, PA birth placard"]
* John Steinbeck - Nobel prize-winning author, one of the best-known and most widely read American writers of the 20th century [ [http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm About the USA > "Germans in America"] [ [http://www.steinbeck.org/Bio.html] "John Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, on February 27, 1902 of German and Irish ancestry."]
* Dr. Seuss (born Theodor Seuss Geisel) - writer and cartoonist [ [http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm About the USA > Germans in America ] ]
* Henry Villard - journalist [ [http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9382020/Henry-Villard] "German-born U.S. journalist and financier"]
* Kurt Vonnegut [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/928/000022862/] "Vonnegut, a fourth generation German-American, was sent to a POW camp in Dresden." [http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/fiction/vonnegut.htm] ]

Entertainment

Actors and actresses

* Eddie Albert - (born Edward Albert Heimberger) Oscar and Emmy Award-nominated American stage, film, character actor, gardener, humanitarian activist, and World War II hero.Fact|date=September 2008
* Edward Albert - (born Edward Laurence Heimberger) film and television actorFact|date=September 2008
* Edward Arnold - actor [ [http://www.classicimages.com/2000/october00/edwardarnol.shtml] "He was born Guenther Edward Schneider February 18, 1890 in New York City to fur cutter Carl Schneider and Elizabeth Ohse formerly of Hanover, Germany. Five children made for a crowded coldwater flat, but the thrifty German family somehow always had enough food on the table."]
* Fred Astaire - actor [ [http://german.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.germanhollywood.com/astaire.html] "After his arrival in New York and a brief stay at Ellis Island, Fritz Austerlitz made his way west to Omaha, Nebraska. There he met a woman much younger than he named Johanna (Ann) Geilus. Johanna had been born in Omaha, but her parents, David Geilus and Wilhelmina Klaatke, were German-speaking, Lutheran immigrants from East Prussia and Alsace. The 25-year-old Fritz and 16-year-old Johanna were married at the First German Lutheran Church in Omaha on Nov. 17, 1894. On the marriage license the groom is listed simply as “Fritz Austerlitz.” The bride's name is recorded as “Johanna Geilus” with the notation “consent given by father” of the teenage bride."] cite book
last = Astaire
first = Fred
title = Steps in Time
publisher = Heinemann
date = 1959
location = London
id = ISBN 0-241-11749-6 ] rp|84
* Mary Astor - actress [ [http://www.mickifree.com/quincyhistoricalsociety.htm] "Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke in Quincy, on May 3, 1906, to German immigrant parents."]
* Lauren Bacall - actress [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx.html#ba] "American actress of German-Jewish heritage, most famous as Humphrey Bogart's partner, both on and off screen (they married in 1945). Bronx-born Bacall got her screen name from her German-Romanian grandmother, who raised her after her parents' divorce in 1930."]
* Catherine Bach - actress [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/364/000025289/] "German Ancestry"]
* Maxine Bahns - actress [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000827/] "Maxine Bahns was born in 1971 in Vermont, the daughter of a German-American father..."]
* Jaid Barrymore - actressFact|date=September 2008
* Chris Bauer - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Carl Betz - actor and World War II VeteranFact|date=September 2008
* Curt Bois - actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/casabl2.html#bois] "Born in Berlin, Bois worked as a “wide-eyed” character and stage actor for many years in Germany until he was forced to leave..."]
* Eric Braeden - actor [ [http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/theactors/braeden.php] "Born Hans Gudegast, Eric Braeden emigrated to the U.S. in 1959 from the port city of Kiel, West Germany and became a naturalized citizen while attending college. In 1989, Eric served as a member of the German-American Advisory Board along with the likes of Dr. Henry Kissinger. Eric has also been awarded the Federal Medal of Honor by the President of Germany for promoting a "positive, realistic image of Germans in America."] [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/braeden.html] "Hans Gudegast (a.k.a. Eric Braeden) is a German-born actor whose career has been very different from that of most other German-speaking actors who have made it big in Hollywood."]
* Victor Brandt - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Felix Bressart - actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx.html#br] "German actor who came to Hollywood in 1937 after fleeing Nazi Germany via France. In the US he was busy as a character actor in many films of the 1940s."]
* Agnes Bruckner - actress [ [http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_11105.html] "...Bruckner is definitely German"]
* Sandra Bullock - actress [ [http://www.netglimse.com/celebs/bio/sandra_bullock.shtml] "The half-German, half-Alabaman Bullock was born in Washington, DC...]
* Carol Channing - actor [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/935/000022869/] "Her grandfather was Nordic-German..."]
* Kevin Costner - actor [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958004-4,00.html] "The Costners, of Irish and German descent..."]
* Helmut Dantine - actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/casabl2.html#dant] "...the 19-year-old was then able to get to safety in America."]
* Doris Day - actress, singer [ [http://www.steynonline.com/pageprint.cfm?edit_id=38] "though as it happens, Doris Day, nee Doris Kappelhoff, is purebred German. "And I have a beautiful shitsu called Wesley Winfield.""] [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index1.html] "Doris Day (Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff, 1924- ; some bios claim she was born in 1922) - American film actress and TV personality born in the Cincinnati suburb of Evanston, Ohio in her family's house, "attended by a good German midwife." Both her parents were children of German immigrants. (Her maternal grandfather Welz came from Berlin.) Despite being Catholics, Doris' parents separated over William von Kappelhoff's extramarital affair when Doris was eleven, and later divorced. In the 1940s in California, the singer began to use the stage name Doris Day."]
* Johnny Depp - actor [ [http://www.johnnydepp-zone.com/deppster/] "Interviewer: German, Irish?Johnny Depp: Yeah. Pu-pu platter, yeah. Combination of weird things. Indian, Irish, German and god knows what. Just a mutt, really."]
* Cameron Diaz - actress of Cuban-American and German-American ancestry.cite news|last=|first=|coauthors=|title=Girl, interrupted|pages=|publisher=Telegraph.co.uk|date=2003-01-09|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/01/09/bfcam09.xml|accessdate=2008-03-06] cite web | last = Rowland | first = Hilary | authorlink = | coauthors =
title = Cameron Diaz:Not Just Another Hollywood Bombshell | work = Hilary Magazine | publisher = | date = undated | url = http://www.hilary.com/celebrity/cameron-diaz.html | format = | doi =
accessdate = 2008-01-12] [cite web | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Cameron Diaz: Hollywood crowd-pleaser DAmon rox | work = BBC News | publisher = | date = 2005-07-29 | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4717013.stm | format = | doi =
accessdate = 2008-01-12] [cite web | last = Hawk | first = Mason | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = A Cheap Date With Cameron Diaz | work = NYRock | publisher = | year = 1998 | url = http://www.nyrock.com/spc/1998/diaz.asp | format = | doi = | accessdate = 2008-01-12]
* Leonardo DiCaprio - actor [ [http://movies.go.com/bio?profileid=732586] "He's half-German, half-Italian." [http://www.germanhollywood.com/dicaprio.html] "His dad, George DiCaprio, half German and half Italian, is an underground comic book artist... DiCaprio's mother, Irmelin Indenbirken (sometimes spelled In Den Birken), was born in a German air raid shelter in the midst of a World War II air raid. After the war, in the 1950s, she emigrated to the US with her parents as a young child... DiCaprio's maternal grandparents, Wilhelm and Helene Indenbirken, continued to live in the US for many years before returning to Germany to enjoy their retirement." [http://www.german-way.com/intervw1oma.html] ]
* Marlene Dietrich - actress [ [http://search.eb.com/women/article-9030401] "German-American motion-picture actress whose aura of sophistication and languid sensuality made her one of the most glamorous of all film stars."]
* Phyllis Diller - entertainer, comedienne and film, television, and stage actress [ [http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.fc/qx/diller-family-crest.htm Diller Family Crest ] ]
* Robert De Niro - actor [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000134/bio] "His mother was of French, Dutch and German ancestry."]
* Haylie Duff - actress and sister of Hilary Duff
* Hilary Duff - actress [ [http://listing-index.ebay.com/actors/Hilary_Duff.html] "Duff's middle name of "Erhard" was the maiden name of her part German American paternal grandmother, Mary Erhard; Duff also has German ancestry on the part of her maternal grandmother, Amy Beulah Schlemmer"]
* Kirsten Dunst - film actress & former model [ [http://www.askmen.com/women/actress/51b_kirsten_dunst.html] "...posters of this Swedish/German beauty will be plastered in locker rooms everywhere..."]
* George Dzundza - actor known for his role as Sgt. Max Greevey in the first season of the TV crime drama Law & OrderFact|date=September 2008
* Douglas Fairbanks - actor of the silent era [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index1.html] "Born Douglas Elton Ulman"]
* Dakota Fanning - child actress ("I Am Sam", "Uptown Girls", "Taken") [Dakota Fanning - [http://www.timessquare.com/movies/dakota_fanning/index.html] "I'm also half German" [http://www.dakota-fanning.org/news.php] "My Grandmother was German, and the tradition was to hide an ornament in a pickle, and whoever find it gets a prize. It's a lot of fun."]
* Fritz Feld - actor [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0270915/] Naturalized citizen from Germany. ]
* Tina Fey - writer, comedian and a Prime Time Emmy-nominated actress [ [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/11/03/031103fa_fact?currentPage=2] "Fey’s mother is Greek-American and her father is German-Scottish, but she’s wary of claiming an ethnic identity."]
* William Fichtner - actor [ [http://www.webbedcrow.com/fichtnerfansite/faq.html] "What nationality are you? (Ginny) German.]
* Harrison Ford - actor [ [http://www.cineman.ch/en/entertainfo/harrison-ford.html] "His paternal grandparents, Florence Veronica Niehaus and John Fitzgerald Ford, were of German and Irish Catholic descent, respectively."]
* Clark Gable - actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index1.html] "...born in Cadiz, Ohio. Both Gable's mother (Adeline Hershelman) and father (William H. Gable) had German ancestors (Frankenfield, Hershelman, and Haupt) who had settled in Pennsylvania."]
* Mitzi Gaynor - born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber -- Actress, singer, and dancer [ [http://german.about.com/library/blsurname01.htm] "Germanic Surname Lexikon (Gerber)"]
* Lillian Gish - actressFact|date=September 2008
* Harry Groener - three-time Tony Award nominee [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0342881/] Naturalized citizen from Germany.]
* Uta Hagen - actress [ [http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/germany/art16340.html] "Uta Hagen, a German actress who achieved fame in her role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, died on Wednesday. Uta was 84. Uta was born on June 12, 1919 in Gottingen, Germany. Her family was very artistic. At age 7, her father got a job as head of the art history department of University of Wisconsin."]
*David Hasselhoff - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Katherine Heigl - actress [ [http://www.tribute.ca/bio.asp?id=2182] "Raised in Connecticut with her two older brothers, Holt and Jason, and older sister Meg, the half-Irish, half-German natural blonde was a child model for Sears catalogs before landing small roles in commercial work."]
* Marg Helgenberger - actress [ [http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,292549_3%7C14746%7C%7C0_0_,00.html] "Her Irish-German beauty helped her grab her first TV gig back in her native Nebraska..."]
* Paul Henreid - born Paul Georg Julius Hernried Freiherr von Wassel-WaldingauFact|date=September 2008
* Edward Herrmann - television and film actor [ [http://www.angelfire.com/me3/lewiscat/audio.html] "...in my family, the Herrmanns, who were German on my father's side. My father didn't speak English until he went to school. They were the most highly respected immigrant group in America, the Germans. They were models of immigrant application and education and hard work and honesty. They went from that to being vilified in about two years from 1914 to 1916. He was thrown off streetcars for forgetting and speaking German in public."]
* Emile Hirsch - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Tab Hunter - film actor and singerFact|date=September 2008
* Emil Jannings - the very first actor to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor [ [] "Although in his autobiography the actor falsely claimed Brooklyn as his birthplace, Emil Jannings (Theodor Friedrich Emil Janez, July 23, 1884 - January 3, 1950) was actually born in Rorschach, Switzerland to a German mother (Margarethe Schwabe) and an American father (Emil Janez). He grew up as a German citizen in Switzerland, Leipzig, and Görlitz, Germany. Jannings began his acting career on the German stage. He made his first film in 1914, but his first real movie success came a few years later when he worked with the German (later Hollywood) director Ernst Lubitsch at the Ufa studios near Berlin."]
* Leatrice Joy - (born Leatrice Joy Zeidler) silent film era actressFact|date=September 2008
* Werner Klemperer - actor [ [http://www.nndb.com/event/582/000051429/] "Naturalized US Citizen: Birthplace: Cologne, Germany"]
* Sarah Kozer - television personalityFact|date=September 2008
* Peter Krause - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Kurt Kreuger - actor [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/501/000135096/] "Naturalized US Citizen - Birthplace: Michenberg, Germany"]
* Berry Kroeger - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Veronica Lake - actress and pin-up model [ [http://peek-a-boo-bang.wyrdweb.com/index.php?sec=abu&p=8] "On the 1910 Census of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, it shows that the grandfather of Constance "Veronica" was born in Germany instead of Sweden..."]
* Cyndi Lauper - singer, actress [ [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_8_31/ai_77336634] "LR: How can you be Italian with a name like Lauper? CL: Lauper's my father's name. He's German and Swiss and my mom's Italian. So I'm German, Swiss and Sicilian. Kinda like cold cuts. [laughs] The German and the Italian in me are always fighting and the Swiss guy in the middle is goin', "OK, let's talk here. Everybody calm down." [both laugh] "]
* Hedy Lamarr - actress [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/lamarr.html Hedy Lamarr >> German-Hollywood Connection ] ]
* Jessica Lange - actress [ [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/celeb/lange.htm 1 ] ]
* Taylor Lautner - actor/martial artist [ [http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:UinMRqrdFKcJ:www.taylorlautner.com/moviefilm.htm+%22Taylor+Lautner%22+French&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=2] "I am only French, Dutch and German. I get my skin color from the French side of my family."]
* Justin Lazard - actor, modelFact|date=September 2008
* Allison Mack - actressFact|date=September 2008
* Fredric March - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Rudolf Martin - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Marx Brothers - actorsFact|date=September 2008
* Ray Mayer - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Helen Menken - actress, born Helen MeinkenFact|date=September 2008
* Candice Michelle - model/actress/WWE diva [ [http://www.nakepedia.com/Candice_Michelle/] "Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the part Panamanian, part German, and all woman Candice Michelle"]
* Heidi Montag - entertainerFact|date=September 2008
* Nick Nolte - actor [ [http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,905120,00.html] "Nolte's father was Franklin, of German origin and, so the story goes, one of a tribe of giants - Nolte's uncles Bener and Poob, plus his dad, all rode in at over 6ft 6in"]
* Chris O'Donnell - actor who played Robin in two Batman movies Fact|date=September 2008
* Lotte Palfi - actress [ [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=18089956] "She was born in Bochum, Germany and died in New York. She was married to actor Wolgang Zilzer (Paul Andor). Both appeared in "Casablanca.""] [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/casabl2.html#zilzer] "Germans Lotte Palfi and Wolfgang Zilzer were two such refugee actors."]
* Lilli Palmer - (born Lillie Marie Peiser) actress [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_5.html#pa] "German actress who at one time was married to Rex Harrison. She arrived in Hollywood via France and England in 1945."]
* Michelle Pfeiffer - actress [cite book |title=The Great Movie Stars: The Independent Years |last=Shipman |first=David |year=1991 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |location=Boston |isbn=0316784893]
* Amy Poehler - actress and comedianFact|date=September 2008
* Erich Pommer - actor and film producer [ [http://www.cyranos.ch/metrop-e.htm#pommer] "Erich Pommer ranks with the most important personalities of the German silent movie era and he was participated in the worldwide success. No other producer had so influenced the German film like Erich Pommer."]
* George Raft - (born George Ranft) actor [ [http://listing-index.ebay.com/actors/George_Raft.html] "Raft was born George Ranft in Hell's Kitchen, New York City to Conrad Ranft (a German immigrant) and an Italian-American mother, where he quickly adopted the "tough guy" persona that he would later use in his films."]
* Luise Rainer - actress [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_5.html#re] "Born in Düsseldorf, Germany on Jan. 12, 1910. She became a U.S. citizen in 1940"]
* Donna Reed - actressFact|date=September 2008
* Elisabeth Röhm [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0737533/bio] Naturalized American citizen from Germany.]
* Sig Ruman - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Roy Scheider - actorFact|date=September 2008
* August Schellenberg - actor [ [http://www.native-net.org/na/native-american-actors.html] "Half German, half Native Indian"]
* Helen Schneider - actress and singer
* John Schneider - country singer and actor
* Michael Schoeffling - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Josef Sommer - actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_5.html#sf] "Born Maximilian Josef Sommer in Greifswald, Germany, Sommer came to the US as a youth."]
* Matt Schulze - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Nick Stahl - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Eric Stoltz - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Ludwig Stossel - actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/casabl2.html#stossel] "Stossel's last feature film was G.I. Blues (set in West Germany with Elvis Presley and Juliet Prowse) in 1960. Stossel was still active when he died in Beverly Hills after a fall at the age of 90."]
* Charlize Theron - actress [ [http://www.nndb.com/event/582/000051429/] [http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/20/famous-celebrity-immigrants-oped-cx_ee_dream0307_0322immigrant.html] "a naturalized US Citizen of note."]
* Tiffani Thiessen - actress ["I'm a mutt. I have so much of everything in me, and half of it I don't even know. German on one side, Greek, Turkish and Welsh on the other. My mom is very olive-skinned; I get my blue eyes from my dad." ]
* Liv Tyler - actressFact|date=September 2008
* Alida Valli - actress, born Alida Maria Laura von Altenburger
* Conrad Veidt - actorFact|date=September 2008
* Mike Vogel - actor [ [http://www.mike-vogel.com/biography.php] ]
* Erik von Detten - actor [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/149/000109819/] "German Ancestry"]
* Angelina Jolie - actress , born Angelina Jolie VoightFact|date=September 2008
* Jon Voight - actor [ [http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/archive/peoplearchive.php/Jon_Voight/biog] "His maternal grandparents were German his paternal grandfather was an immigrant from Austria-Hungary."] .
* Jenna von Oÿ - actress and singer [ [http://www.tv.com/jenna-von-oy/person/1789/summary.html] "Jenna: (On her last name) My last name is German and both my grandparents immigrated from Germany. The name is actually composed of two parts..."von", denotes land ownership, and "Oy" refers to a region in the lower Rhine. The family name predates any national borders and the ancestoral estates are in present day Holland. In fact, ruins of a castle still exist there. In current Dutch, the "Oy" mimics the Dutch word for stork and our family crest does portray a stork."]
* Christopher Walken - actor [ [http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2000/10/10/walken/index.html] "Both of his parents were immigrants -- his father, Paul, from Germany; his mother, Rosalie, from Scotland."]
* Paul Walker - actor [ [http://www.infilm.com.au/features/paulwalker.htm] "I’m Irish and German, I thought that I could go toe-to-toe but it’s hard to keep up with the Aussies."]
* Erin Wasson - actress/model [ [http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/models/Erin_Wasson] "Ethnicity: German/American"]
* Johnny Weissmuller - Olympic swimmer, actor, best known as Tarzan [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/tarzan.html] "Weissmuller was born in the tiny hamlet of Freidorf (“free village” in German, Hungarian Szabadfalu) not far from Timisoara (Ger., Temeschburg). Even today the area around Timisoara is dotted with small towns bearing German names such as Gottlob, Johanisfeld and Liebling, reflecting the German ethnic influence on the region. Weissmuller’s family left Banat for America in 1904, shortly after Johnny’s birth, settling first in Pennsylvania, where many other Austrians and Germans lived (and where brother Peter was born in 1905), and later in Chicago, another Germanic stronghold and the home of Weissmuller's maternal grandparents. The original German family name Weissmüller translates literally as “white miller” or “wheat miller” (Weizen)."]
* Mae West - actress, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol [ [http://www.forward.com/issues/2004/04.02.06/news13.html Jewish News, Jewish Newspapers - Forward.com ] ]
* Bruce Willis - actor [ [http://edition.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Movies/9806/25/moore.willis.split/index.html] "The German-born, New Jersey-raised Willis, 43, is one of Hollywood's biggest..."]
* Katie Wuhrer - actressFact|date=September 2008
* Wolfgang Zilzer - actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/casabl2.html#zilzer] "Zilzer and Palfi married in 1943 and soon moved to New York. Both continued to act, mostly in television. Zilzer died in Berlin in 1991, and his former wife (they divorced amicably when Zilzer was seriously ill and wanted to go to Germany), who refused to return to Germany, died just a few months later in New York."]

Celebrities

* Paul Burmeister - analyst for the NFL NetworkFact|date=September 2008
* Siegfried Fischbacher - magician [ [http://www.nndb.com/event/582/000051429/] "Naturalized US Citizen - Birthplace: Rosenheim, Bavaria, Germany"]
* Paris Hilton - Hilton Hotel heiress [ [http://celebrity.aol.com/people/ataol/articles/0,26618,1208477,00.html] "I think German guys are really hot ... I am German."]
* Nikki Hilton - Hilton Hotel heiress [http://celebrity.aol.com/people/ataol/articles/0,26618,1208477,00.html Entertainment News, Celebrity News, Movie News, Music News, TV News - AOL News ] ]
* Roy Horn - magician [ [http://www.nndb.com/event/582/000051429/] "Naturalized US Citizen - Birthplace: Nordenham, Germany"]
* Stacy Keibler - World Wrestling Entertainment diva, model and ex-cheerleader of the Baltimore Ravens
* Jimmy Kimmel - comedian, writer, talk show host, game show host, and producer [ [http://www.bendweekly.com/news/2262.html] "But the workaholic, something he picked up from his father, an executive vice president for IBM, and his stay-at-home mother, looks forward to work every day as he is surrounded by genuine members of his German-Italian family."]
* Heidi Montag - reality television celebrity [ [http://www.ancestry.com/facts/Montag-name-meaning.ashx] "German: from Middle High German mantac, German Montag ‘Monday’. As a German name, this was a nickname for someone who had a particular association with this day of the week, probably because he owed feudal service then."]
* Keith Olbermann - news anchor, commentator and radio sportscaster [cite web | url= http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20107912| title='Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for August 2, 2007 "You know, the same way the anti-immigrant bigots didn‘t want my immigrant German ancestors changing the tempo of the whole neighborhood in 1900."]
* Stefani Schaeffer - named Season 6 ApprenticeFact|date=September 2008
* Ruth Westheimer - media sex educator “Dr. Ruth”Fact|date=September 2008

Directors/producers

* Woody Allen - (born Allen Stewart Königsberg) actor, film producer [ [http://www.adherents.com/people/pa/Woody_Allen.html] "German was so common at home and English such a rarity that, for a while as a child, Allen spoke that language... At least part of the time, most of the Konigsbergs and Cherries spoke Yiddish, the lingua franca of European Jewry, created when eastern Jews who spoke only Hebrew were forced to adopt German methods of writing, as well as many German and French words."]
* Harry Cohn - founded C.B.C. Films in 1920, later Columbia Pictures [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index1.html] "Born to German-Jewish parents in New York City, Cohn, his brother Jack (1889-1956), and partner Joe Brandt founded C.B.C. Films in 1920, later Columbia Pictures."]
* Peter Douglas - Emmy award winning director and producer [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0235209/] "Son of Kirk Douglas and German mother Anne ..."]
* Roland Emmerich - Hollywood film director; born in Stuttgart [ [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramDEF.htm] "...the German director of Hollywood films including Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, and The Day After Tomorrow, was born in Stuttgart."]
* Steven Fischer - producer/director; two time Emmy Award nomineeFact|date=September 2008
* Marc Forster - directorFact|date=September 2008
* John Frankenheimer - film directorFact|date=September 2008
* Mark Hellinger - producerFact|date=September 2008
* Werner Herzog - film director, screenwriter, actor, and opera directorFact|date=September 2008
* Carl Laemmle - pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studiosFact|date=September 2008
* Ernst Lubitsch - acclaimed film director, special Academy Award winner [ [http://wwwa.britannica.com/eb/article-9049218] "German-American motion-picture director"] [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/gotmail.html] "Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) came to Hollywood from his native Berlin in 1922—at the request of Mary Pickford. It was in the German film capital that he began to develop what would later be known simply as “the Lubitsch Touch.” In the American film capital his success would be phenomenal."]
* Anthony Mann - film director and actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_4.html#ma] "Born Emil Anton Bundmann. German-American director. (Sullivan's Travels, Border Incident, Winchester '73, The Glenn Miller Story, God's Little Acre, El Cid)"]
* F. W. Murnau - film director of the silent era [ [http://www.leninimports.com/murnau_fw.html] F.W. Murnau Facts]
* Harold Nebenzal - film producer and screenwriter [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index2.html] "German-American film producer and screenwriter. Born in Berlin, the son of Seymour Nebenzahl (below). His production work in Hollywood includes CABARET (1972) and Billy Wilder's FEDORA (1978)."]
* Seymour Nebenzahl - film producer [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index2.html] "(1897-1961, aka Nebenzal) - German-American film producer born in New York, educated there and in Berlin, Germany. Together with his father Heinrich Nebenzahl (d. 1938), Seymour founded film companies and produced many of the classic movies of the Weimar period, including PANDORA'S BOX with Louise Brooks and M with Peter Lorre. In Hollywood Seymour worked as a producer at MGM and his own Nero Films."]
* Mike Nichols- Academy Award winning film director, writer and producer [ [http://www.nextbook.org/archive/newsarchive.html?id=663] "Mike Nichols, the German-born director of HBO's Angels in America, tells the Washington Post his feel for Yiddish rushed back in a skit when Elaine May..."]
* Arch Oboler - scriptwriter, novelist, producer and director who was active in films, radio and television [ [http://otrcat.com/archobolerplays-p-1056.html] "Born to in 1909 to Bavarian-Jewish German father and a Irish Catholic mother, Arch Oboler grew up protestant in Chicago, IL"]
* Wolfgang Petersen- directorFact|date=September 2008
* Gottfried Reinhardt - producer and director [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index2.html] "...came to the US at the age of 19. The second son of Max Reinhardt (below), Gottfried was born in Berlin but lived in both Germany and the US before he died in Los Angeles in 1994."]
* George Schaefer - director of television and Broadway theatreFact|date=September 2008
* Eric Schaeffer - actor/writer/director in film and televisionFact|date=September 2008
* Victor Schertzinger - composer, film director, film producer, and screenwriterFact|date=September 2008
* Eugen Schüfftan - cinematographer and inventor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_5.html#sf] "German-American cinematographer and inventor of the “Schüfftan process” for optical special effects, used until it was replaced by the simpler matte method. Camera work: Menschen am Sonntag (1929), The Hustler (1961, Acad. Award), Lilith (1964)."] [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005867/bio] "Born in Germany... He moved to the United States in 1940."]
* Reinhold Schünzel - director and actor [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_5.html#sc] "German director and actor. After a long career in Germany that included directing and writing the screenplay for Viktor und Viktoria (1933, remade by Blake Edwards in 1982), Schünzel came to the US in 1938. In Hollywood he acted (Hangmen Also Die, The Hitler Gang, Notorious, Golden Earrings, Berlin Express) and directed (Rich Man Poor Girl, Ice Follies of 1939, New Wine)."]
* Robert Siodmak - director [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/alphindx_5.html#sd] "German director and brother of Hollywood screenwriter, Curt Siodmak. Although born in Memphis, Tenn., Robert grew up and was educated in Germany. He began his film career at the German UFA studios in 1925"]
* Irving Thalberg - film producer, the 'Boy Wonder'Fact|date=September 2008
* Paul Vogel - cinematographerFact|date=September 2008
* Wim Wenders - film director [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/wenders.html] "Wim Wenders was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, Germany. After living in Los Angeles for eight years, the director returned to his homeland to make his first German-language film since moving to the U.S. The German director has made most of his films in English in the U.S. He has been living in Los Angeles since the 1980s, although he spends part of each year in Germany and Berlin (his favorite city)."]
* William Wyler - film director [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/wyler.html] "...born in Mülhausen (Mulhouse), Alsace-Lorraine (then German, now part of France) on the first day of July 1902... ...Wyler became a US citizen in 1928."]
* Darryl F. Zanuck - producer, writer, actor and director who played a major part in the Hollywood studio systemFact|date=September 2008

Humorists

* Matt Groening - cartoonist, "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" creator [ [http://www.snpp.com/other/interviews/groening91.html] "My background is Norwegian and German, two of the unfunniest ethnic groups in the history of the world."] and creator of the comic strip "Life in Hell".

Models

* Carol Alt - supermodel and actressFact|date=September 2008
* Megan Ewing [ [http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/models/megan_ewing/showphoto/2986] "Ethnicity: Mexican/German "]
* Jinx Falkenburg - modelFact|date=September 2008
* Julia Schultz - model and actressFact|date=September 2008

Music

* Bix Beiderbecke - jazz cornet player and a classical and jazz pianist [ [http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608000175/Bix-Beiderbecke.html] "The second son of German middle class immigrants, Leon Bix Beiderbecke was born on March 10, 1903, in Davenport, Iowa."]
* Frank Heino Damrosch - conductor and educatorFact|date=September 2008
* Leopold Damrosch - conductorFact|date=September 2008
* Walter Johannes Damrosch - conductor [ [http://www.highbeam.com/ref/doc3.asp?docid=1E1:DamroschW] "German-American conductor and composer"]
* Glenn Danzig - singer, songwriter and musicianFact|date=September 2008
* Carlos Dengler - Interpol guitaristFact|date=September 2008
* John Denver - musician [ [http://www.wargs.com/other/denver.html Ancestry of John Denver ] ]
* Howard Dietz - publicist, lyric writer and librettist [ [http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.fc/qx/dietz-family-crest.htm] "Dietz Family History"]
* Adolph Deutsch - Academy Award-winning composer, conductor and arrangerFact|date=September 2008
* Fred Durst - musician, director, and actor, known primarily as the founder of nu metal band Limp BizkitFact|date=September 2008
* Antje Duvekot - singer, songwriter, and guitaristFact|date=September 2008
*Chris Fehn- percussionist SlipknotFact|date=September 2008
* Lukas Foss - conductor [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9034995] "German-born U.S. composer, pianist, and conductor"]
* Daryl Hall - (born Daryl Franklin Hohl) singer/songwriterFact|date=September 2008
* James Hetfield - singer/rhythm guitarist of MetallicaFact|date=September 2008
* Elbert Joseph Higgins - songwriter [ [http://www.entpresents.com/artists.php?id=54] "Elbert Joseph Higgins of Portuguese, Irish and German descent..."]
* Paul Hindemith - composer, violinist and influential teacher. [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/hindemith.html] "...one of the most important figures in 20th century music, and an influential teacher. Hindemith was born in Hanau on Nov. 16, 1895, and studied at the Hock Conservatory in Frankfurt... ...He went to the U.S. in 1940 and taught at Yale University"]
* Hanya Holm - choreographer [ [http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9367238/Hanya-Holm] "German-born American choreographer of modern dance and Broadway musicals"]
* Horst P. Horst - photographer [ [http://www.artnet.com/artist/8526/horst-p-horst.html Horst P. Horst on artnet ] ]
* Elizabeth Hummel - singer-songwriterFact|date=September 2008
* Jonas Brothers - musicians
* Norman Frauenheim - acclaimed pianist and music teacher [ [http://www.ironcitybrewingcompany.com/Company/History/tabid/65/Default.aspx] "Frauenheim was the fifth of seven children born to Edward J. and Antoinette Marie “Nettie” Vilsack Frauenheim whose own parents were the co-founders of the Pittsburgh Brewing Company"]
* Hugo Friedhofer - Film music composer [ [http://www.germanhollywood.com/abc_index1.html] "...born in San Francisco. His father was a cellist trained in Dresden, Germany; his mother, Eva König, was born in Germany. Because he could speak German, Warner Bros. assigned Friedhofer to work with the Austrian composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner. Despite his own strong skills, he remained in their shadow for many years. Friedhofer won an Academy Award for his score for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)."]
* Dave Grohl - rock musician and songwriterFact|date=September 2008
* Gus Kahn - musician, songwriter and lyricistFact|date=September 2008
* Edd Kalehoff - music composer who specializes in compositions for televisionFact|date=September 2008
* Jerome Kern - composerFact|date=September 2008
* Jewel Kilcher - singer, songwriter, actress, poet and philanthropist, generally known just by her first name, JewelFact|date=September 2008
* Henry Kleber - influential performer, composer, music merchant, impresario, and teacher. [ [http://www.carnegielibrary.org/exhibit/neighborhoods/northside/nor_n110a.html] "Born in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1816, coming to this city when a child, and at an early age manifesting his talents as a musician, teacher and composer influencing the likes of Stephen Foster"]
* Johnny Klein - drummer for Lawrence Welk on the The Lawrence Welk ShowFact|date=September 2008
* Otto Klemperer - conductor [ [http://www.nndb.com/event/582/000051429/] "Naturalized US Citizen - Birthplace: Breslau, Silesia, Germany"]
* Alison Krauss (Krauß) - bluegrass-country singer and fiddle playerFact|date=September 2008
* Nick Lachey - pop singer [ [http://www.superiorpics.com/nick_lachey/] "German descendant pop singer Nick Lachey was first popular as a member of the multi-platinum selling boy band 98 Degrees..."]
* Tallan Latz - blues guitar prodigyFact|date=September 2008
* Charles Martin Loeffler - composer [ [http://www.loc.gov/performingarts/encyclopedia/collections/loeffler.html] "Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935) was a German-American violinist and composer"]
* Marilyn Manson- singerFact|date=September 2008
* Christian Frederick Martin - guitar maker, founded C. F. Martin & CompanyFact|date=September 2008
* Jaco Pastorius - musician and songwriter widely acknowledged for his virtuosity of the fretless bass [ [http://www.jacop.net/faq.html] "The Latin name PASTORIUS was once the German Schäfer, meaning shepherd. Jaco's father, John Francis Pastorius II, was born in Pennsylvania from German and Irish descendants."]
* Elvis Presley - singer [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/mtoz/presley.html] "The German origins are well documented and go back to Valentine Pressler (1669-1736) and his wife, Anna Christina (nee Frank) both of Niederhochstadt, in what is now the Rhineland-Palatinate. The family including their children emigrated to Maryland in 1709. Their eldest son changed his name to Presley..."]
* Linda Ronstadt - singer, songwriter. [ [http://www.emat-tucson.org/Germany/People.html] "Father was Federico (Fred) Ronstadt – 1868-1954. His father was Herr Frederick Augustus Ronstadt, a German mining engineer, who came to the West in the 1850’s from Hamburg, Germany. He settled in Las Delcias, Sonora, and married Margarita Redondo. She gave birth to Federico, known later as Fred, on January 30, 1868. Fred was brought to Tucson in 1882, when he was 14, to work and help support the family of four children: Gretchen, Peter, Linda & Mike. During the 1960’s, Gretchen, Peter & Linda played and sang at coffeehouses in Tucson."] [ [http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/fordtimes.htm] "(The German surname comes from a grandfather who married into the Mexican family.)"]
* Bruno Walter Schlesinger - conductor and composerFact|date=September 2008
* Jeff Schroeder - guitarist, Smashing PumpkinsFact|date=September 2008
* Theodore Thomas - conductor [ [http://wwwa.britannica.com/eb/article-9072176] "German-born American conductor who was largely responsible for the role of symphony orchestras in many American cities."]
* Dee Dee Ramone - Bassist for The Ramones [ [http://www.kauhajoki.fi/~jplaitio/members/deedee.html Ramones: Facts Of Dee Dee Ramone ] ]
* Heinz Eric Roemheld - Academy Award-winning composerFact|date=September 2008
* Arnold Schoenberg - expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School [ [http://schoenberg.at/1_as/bio/biographie_e.htm] "1941 - Birth of his son Lawrence on 27 January. Arnold, Gertrud and Nuria are granted American citizenship."]
* Max Steiner - composer of music for theater and filmsFact|date=September 2008
* Zacky Vengeance - Rhythm Guitarist for Avenged SevenfoldFact|date=September 2008
* Kurt Weill - composer [ [http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/weill.html] "German composer, American citizen from 1943"]
* Pete Wentz - Bassist for the band Fall Out BoyFact|date=September 2008
* Lawrence Welk - bandleader [ [http://www.tvacres.com/ethnic_german.htm] "Lawrence Welk, German-American bandleader"]
* Hugo Winterhalter - easy listening arranger and composerFact|date=September 2008
* Ace Young - singer ["No one really sounds like me. I'm German-Irish but for some reason I have soul in me. I've always had it - ever since I was a kid. So I'm bringing my spirit and my heart because every song I sing, I'm telling a story."]

Entrepreneurs

* John Jacob Astor - merchant [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/astor.html] "German-American merchant and financier, born near Heidelberg, Germany."]
* William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor - financier and statesman
* George Frederick Baer - lawyer, Social Darwinist railroad baron (former President of the Reading Railroad) [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/861/000082615/] "German Heritage"]
* Ralph Baer - father of the home video game consule [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/296/000101990/] "German Heritage"]
* John Jacob Bausch - optician who co-founded Bausch & Lomb [ [http://www.bausch.com/en_US/corporate/corpcomm/general/story.aspx] "One of the oldest continually operating companies in the US today, Bausch & Lomb traces its roots to 1853, when John Jacob Bausch, a German immigrant, set up a tiny optical goods shop in Rochester, New York."]
* Andy Bechtolsheim - co-founder of Sun Microsystems and one of the first investors in GoogleFact|date=September 2008
*Joseph Augustus Biedenharn - credited with first bottling the popular soda fountain drink Coca-Cola in the summer of 1894Fact|date=September 2008
* Maximilian Berlitz - Berlitz Language School [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramABC.htm Famous German-Americans | Profiles - Biographies ] ]
* William Edward Boeing - aviation pioneer who founded The Boeing CompanyFact|date=September 2008
* Henry Buhl Jr. - entrepreneur and public science educator [ [http://www.clpgh.org/exhibit/neighborhoods/oakland/oak_centg.html The Carnegie Science Center ] ] [http://www.foundationcenter.org/grantmaker/buhl/profile.html "To the new business Henry Buhl brought German thoroughness and caution, an infinite capacity for hard work, and a business training acquired from his successful father and from that staunch old pioneer, his grandfather, Christian Buhl. For nine recorded generations, the Buhls had been merchants — in Bavaria and in Zelienople, Pennsylvania." ]
* Walter Chrysler - Chrysler automobile developer [ [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramABC.htm] "The American founder of Chrysler was a descendent of the German Johann Phillip Kreisler (1672-1742) who sailed to the New World in 1709."]
* Noah Dietrich - CEO of the Howard Hughes empireFact|date=September 2008
* Walt Disney - film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist [ [http://www.justdisney.com/WaltDisney100/biography/01.html] "his father, Elias Disney, an Irish-Canadian, and his mother, Flora Call Disney, who was of German-American descent."]
* John Doerr - venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
* August Duesenberg - automobile pioneer manufacturerFact|date=September 2008
* Fred Duesenberg - automobile pioneer designer, manufacturer and sportsmanFact|date=September 2008
* Harvey Firestone - founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company [ [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramDEF.htm] "The Firestone family goes back to German immigrants named Feuerstein. Harvey Firestone's great-great-great grandfather was Hans Nikolaus Feuerstein, born March 25, 1712 in Berg, Alsace, a German-speaking region now in France. Hans and his wife Catharina arrived in America in September 1753 and Hans is believed to have died in Pennsylvania in 1763."]
* August Charles Fruehauf - blacksmith who invented the tractor trailer or semi-trailer (Sattelschlepper in German) in 1914 and founded the Fruehauf Trailer Corporation [ [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramDEF.htm] "...was a German-American blacksmith who invented the tractor trailer or semi-trailer (Sattelschlepper in German) in 1914. Four years later he later founded the Fruehauf Trailer Corporation."]
* Gustav Goelitz - candy and ice cream merchant whose endeavours led to candy corn and the Jelly Belly candy company [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/goelitz.html] "Shortly after the Civil War, two young brothers came to America from their family home in the Harz Mountain region of Germany..."]
* Theodor August Heintzman - piano manufacturer (Heintzman & Co.) and inventorFact|date=September 2008
* Henry J. Heinz - H. J. Heinz Company ketchup founder [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramGHI.htm Famous German-Americans - Part 3: G-H-I ] ]
* H. J. Heinz II - best known as Jack Heinz, a business executive and CEO of the H. J. Heinz Company
* Milton S. Hershey - Hershey chocolate founder
* Barron Hilton - chairman of the Hilton Hotel chain and grandfather of Paris Hilton
* Conrad Hilton - founder of the Hilton Hotel chain and great grandfather of Paris Hilton & Nicky Hilton [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/756/000026678/] Father: Augustus Holver Hilton (Norwegian) -- Mother: Mary Laufersweiler (German)]
* Richard Hilton, Businessman and father of Paris Hilton
* Max Kade - pharmaceutical industry tycoon, endowed the Max Kade foundation [ [http://www2.ku.edu/~maxkade/maxkade.htm] "Having made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry, he endowed the Max Kade foundation with the goal of promoting the mutual understanding of the people and cultures of Germany and the United States."]
* Otto Hermann Kahn - investment banker [ [http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/90.3/br_89.html] "Born a middle-class, assimilated German Jew..."]
* Edgar J. Kaufmann - department store entrepreneurFact|date=September 2008
* John W. Kieckhefer - pioneer in the use of fibre shipping containers and one of the wealthiest men in America in 1957Fact|date=September 2008
* John Kluge - television industry mogul [ [http://www.forbes.com/2000/10/06/1006faces.html] "Kluge, a German-born billionaire, donated a whopping $60 million to start the..."]
* William Knabe - industrialist and piano-manufacturer [ [http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm] "From music have come - beside the piano- and organ-makers, Steinway, Knabe"]
* Johan Adam Lemp - the father of modern brewing in St. Louis, started the William J. Lemp Brewing Company [ [http://lemplager.com/lemp/history.asp] "Johan Adam Lemp was born in Gruningen, Germany"]
* Alfred Lion - co-founder of Blue Note RecordsFact|date=September 2008
* Solomon Loeb - banker, co-founder of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.Fact|date=September 2008
* William H. Luden - developer of the menthol cough drop, the first ever, Luden's Menthol Cough DropsFact|date=September 2008
* Peter Luger - steak restauranteur [ [http://www.greatunclepeters.com/aboutus.html] "Among the black-and-whites is a shot of a burly German man. That would be Great Uncle Peter - more specifically, Peter Luger, who in 1887 opened a beer garden in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y., that started off selling sandwiches and steak tidbits before graduating to full-fledged steak dinners."]
* Abby Rockefeller Mauzé - philanthropistFact|date=September 2008
* Oscar Mayer - meat entrepreneur [ [http://www.kraftfoods.com/oscarmayer/omm_history2.htm] "Soon Oscar's brother Gottfried, a "wurstmacher" (or sausage-maker) from Nurnberg, Germany, would join Oscar in the states, and together they leased the Kolling Meat Market on Chicago's north side. Before long, customers in their German neighborhood were standing in line for Mayer specialties like bockwurst, liverwurst, and weisswurst. By the time a third brother, Max, joined them from Germany, the brothers had moved into their own establishment."]
* F. L. Maytag - founded the Maytag CompanyFact|date=September 2008
* George W. Merck - scientist and former president of Merck & Co.Fact|date=September 2008
* Adolph Ochs - newspaper publisher and former owner of "The New York Times" and "The Chattanooga Times" (now the "Chattanooga Times Free Press")Fact|date=September 2008
* Hermann Oelrichs - businessman, multimillionaire, and owner of Norddeutsche Lloyd shippingFact|date=September 2008
* Fabian Pascal - consultant to large software vendors [ [http://www.dbdebunk.com/about.html Database Debunkings - About ] ]
* Charles Pfizer - founded the Pfizer Inc. pharmaceutical company Fact|date=September 2008
* George Remus - famous Cincinnati lawyer and bootlegger during the prohibition eraFact|date=September 2008
* Adolph Rickenbacher - created the electric guitar manufacturer, Rickenbacher Manufacturing CompanyFact|date=September 2008
* William Rittenhouse - built the first paper mill in America [ [http://www.ushistory.org/germantown/people/rittenhouse.htm] "William Rittenhouse was born in what is now Germany, near the Dutch border. His name was then Wilhelm Rittenhausen, later changed in America"]

* David Rockefeller - prominent banker, philanthropist, world statesman, and the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family
* John D. Rockefeller - industrialist and philanthropistFact|date=September 2008
* John D. Rockefeller, Jr. - industrialist and philanthropist
* John D. Rockefeller III - industrialist and philanthropist
* Laurance Rockefeller - venture capitalist, financier, philanthropist and major conservationist
* John Augustus Roebling - civil engineer, one of the pioneers in the construction of suspension bridges [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/mtoz/roebling.html German American Corner: ROEBLING, John Augustus (1806-69) ] ]
* Washington Augustus Roebling - civil engineer best known for his work on the Brooklyn Bridge
* Jim Rohr - Chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services Group (PNC Bank)Fact|date=September 2008
* August Schell - founded The August Schell Brewing Company in 1860, the second oldest family-owned brewery in AmericaFact|date=September 2008
* Jacob Schiff - banker and philanthropistFact|date=September 2008
* Eric E. Schmidt - chairman and CEO of Google Inc. and a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc.Fact|date=September 2008
* Steve Schwarzman - billionaire, owner of Blackstone GroupFact|date=September 2008
* Isaac Singer - inventor, actor, and sewing machine entrepreneur [ [http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm] "The roll call of German-American leaders in business and finance includes names like Astor, Boeing, Chrysler, Firestone, Fleischman, Guggenheim, Heinz, Hershey, Kaiser, Rockefeller, Steinway, Strauss (of-blue jeans fame), Singer (originally Reisinger)..."]
* Claus Spreckels - industrialist [ [http://www.mtycounty.com/pgs-pioneers/spreckels.html] "Claus Spreckels was born on July 9, 1828 and started off as a poor German immigrant who first settled in North Carolina upon arriving in America in 1846."]
* Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg - Steinway pianos manufacturer [ [http://www.hanlet.com/marqhist.lasso?Lang=UK&MarqueID=1] "Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, a German master-carpenter, builds his first instrument in his Seesen..."]
* Henry William Stiegel - glassmaker and ironmaster and an active lay Lutheran and associate of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, arrived in Philadelphia in 1750 on a ship known as the Nancy
* Chris Strachwitz - founder and president of Arhoolie Records [ [http://www.wargs.com/noble/strachwitz.html] "http://www.wargs.com/noble/strachwitz.html"]
* Levi Strauss - creator of the first company to manufacture blue jeans. [ [http://www.gzg.fn.bw.schule.de/schulen/emigrate/dokument/persons/strauss/nchs/strauss.htm] "the founder of the modern day denim industries"]
* Clement Studebaker - founded Studebaker, a wagon, carriage and car manufacturer [ [http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm] "Pennsylvania-German-built Conestoga wagons carried the pioneers westward, some armed with "Kentucky rifles," also made in Pennsylvania by Germans. A leading German-American wagon builder, Clement Studebaker, later produced the popular car that bore his name."]
* John Sutter - pioneer settler/colonizer [ [http://wwwa.britannica.com/eb/article-9070519] "German-born Swiss pioneer settler and colonizer in California..."]
* Donald Trump - real estate developer [ [http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2006/05/01/donald_trump_becomes_scottish_ambassador] "The celebrity, who is half Scottish and half German, is thrilled with the honor..."]
* William Utz - snack food entrepreneurFact|date=September 2008
* Charles von der Ahe - founder of the Vons Supermarket chainFact|date=September 2008
* The Warburg Family - bankersFact|date=September 2008
* George Westinghouse - engineer and electricity pioneer [ [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramCat.htm Famous German-Americans by Category ] ]
* Friedrich Weyerhäuser - timber mogul and founder of the Weyerhaeuser [ [http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/GermAmChron.htm] "1914 - ...Frederick Weyerhaeuser, German-born lumber king, dies. His fortune: $300,000,000."]
* Rudolph Wurlitzer - musical instrument entrepreneur [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-650046/Rudolph-Wurlitzer] "Rudolph Wurlitzer (b. Jan. 30, 1831, Schöneck, Saxony [Germany] —d. Jan. 14, 1914, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.), emigrated to the United States in 1853, settling in Cincinnati."]
* William Zeckendorf - prominent real estate developerFact|date=September 2008

Brewers

* Eberhard Anheuser - soap and candle maker, president and CEO of Eberhard Anheuser and Company, which eventually became Anheuser-Busch
*Phillip Best - founder of Pabst Brewing Company (with Frederick Pabst)
* Valentin Blatz - beer baron, started the Valentin Blatz Brewing Company [ [http://www.zalewskifamily.net/2007/12/06/famous-milwaukeeans] "Valentin was was a German-American brewer and banker. He was born in Bavaria and worked at his father’s brewery in his youth. He started a brewery which became home to Blatz Beer. Valentin was one of the many “beer barons” of Milwaukee. So many, in fact, that there is a section at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee called “Beer Baron’s Hill” which houses a few of these men."]
* Adolphus Busch - Anheuser-Busch brewing company founder [ [http://www.missouricivilwarmuseum.org/germancause.htm] "Adolphus Busch, was a Corporal Co. E 3rd Regiment US Reserve Infantry Corps (3 months, 1861) after the war became St. Louis most famous German immigrant."]
* Adolphus Busch III - brewing magnate who was the President and CEO of Anheuser-Busch from 1934-1946
* August Anheuser Busch, Sr. - brewing magnate who served as the President and CEO of Anheuser-Busch from 1913-1934
* August Busch IV - president and CEO of Anheuser-Busch
* Gussie Busch - brewing magnate who built the Anheuser-Busch Companies into the largest brewery in the world as company chairman from 1946-75, and became a prominent sportsman as owner of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise in Major League Baseball
* Adolph Coors - Coors beer empire founder [ [http://www.alabev.com/coorstry.htm] "And so it was with Adolph Coors, the young German immigrant who founded Coors Brewing Company..."]
* George Ehret - beer baron, started The Hell Gate Brewery [ [http://www.beerhistory.com/library/holdings/ehret.html] "The Hell Gate Brewery was established by George Ehret in the year 1866; hence, at a time when the annual production of malt liquors [in the U.S.] had increased to 5,115,140 barrels. He had then just attained the age of thirty-one years, the date of his birth being April 6, 1835. Nine years before the establishment of this brewery, Mr. Ehret came to America (1857) to join his father, who had emigrated from Germany in August, 1852. "]
* Edward Frauenheim - beer baron, started Iron City Brewing Company in 1861 [ [http://www.ironcitybrewingcompany.com/Company/History/tabid/65/Default.aspx] "Edward Frauenheim – a young German immigrant – formed Iron City Brewing Company in 1861, when Pittsburgh was establishing itself as an industrial superpower."]
* Theodore Hamm - founder of Hamm's Brewery
* Jacob Leinenkugel - beer baron, started the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company [ [http://leinie.com/1st_gen_history.html] Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company]
* Frederick Miller - Miller beer creator [ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/travel/destinations/milwaukee082999.htm] "Frederick Miller, a German immigrant who started his own brewery in 1855..."]
* Frederick Pabst - founder of Pabst Brewery (with Philip Best)
* Tom Pastorius - founded Penn Brewery (Pennsylvania Brewing Co.) [ [http://www.pennbrew.com/data/english/history.htm] "The history of Penn Brewery making great German beers began with Tom Pastorius' great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Franz Daniel Pastorius. Today considered the father of German-Americans, Franz Daniel Pastorius was an idealistic scholar..."]
* Conrad Pfeiffer - beer baron, started Pfeiffer Beer Company [ [http://www.pfeifferbeer.com/history/brewhistory.html] "Conrad Pfeiffer was an emigrant from the German province of Hessen. When he came to America in 1871 at the age of seventeen, he had a limited education and worked various jobs loosely related to brewing for several years. His formal entrance into the career of brewing began at the age of twenty-seven in 1881 when he began working for the Phillip Kling brewery. Eight years later, in 1889, Conrad started brewing beer under his own name with his nephew Martin Breitmeyer. The Breitmeyer's were a wealthy family as a result of their florist business and provided the necessary financial backing. In 1902, the company was re-incorporated as the C. Pfeiffer Brewing Co."]
* Frederick Schaefer - beer baron, started F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company [ [http://www.beerhistory.com/library/holdings/schaefer_anderson.shtml] ""F. & M.", as most breweriana buffs know, stands for Frederick and Maximilian, the brothers who founded Schaefer. Frederick Schaefer, a native of Wetzlar, Prussia, Germany, emigrated to the U.S. in 1838. When he arrived in New York City on October 23rd he was 21 years old and had exactly $1.00 to his name. There is some doubt as to whether or not he had been a practicing brewer in Germany, but there is no doubt that he was soon a practicing brewer in his adopted city."] [ [http://www.pmphoto.to/WorldsFairTour/Zone-3/203.htm] Schaefer Center at the 1939 World's Fair]
* Joseph Schlitz - beer baron, founded Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company [ [http://www.schlitzgusto.com/history.asp Schlitz - Go for the Gusto ] ]
* Peter P. Straub - founder of Straub Brewery [ [http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/FGS/Stra/StraubPeterP-SabinaSorg.shtml] "Peter STRAUB -- Christening: 29 Jun 1850, Katholisch, Felldorf, Schwarzwaldkreis, Wuerttemberg. Father: Anton STRAUB; Mother: M. Anna EGER. Source: Kirchenbuch, 1801-1968. Katholische Kirche Felldorf (OA. Horb)"]
* Bernhard Stroh - founder of Stroh Brewing Company

Historical figures

* Neil Armstrong - astronaut, first human on the moonFact|date=September 2008
* George Atzerodt - assassin [ [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lincolnconspiracy/atzerodt.html] "German-born George Atzerodt immigrated to the United States with his family in 1843, at the age of eight."]
* Laura Bullion (1876-1961) female Old West outlawFact|date=September 2008
* Warren E. Burger (1907 - 1995) Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986 [http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/97/background] "Ethnicity Swiss/German"]
* Hendrick Christiansen - trader and explorer [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/Publications/cronau/cronau3.html] "German traders also appeared in different parts of North America. Soon after Henry Hudson had discovered the noble river which now bears his name, a German, Hendrick Christiansen of Kleve, became the explorer of that stream. Attracted by its beauty and grandeur, he undertook eleven expeditions to its shores. He also built the first houses on Manhattan Island, 1613, and laid the foundations of the trading stations New Amsterdam and Fort Nassau, the present cities of New York and Albany. "]
* Willard Eratus Christiansen aka Matt Warner - Old West outlaw, deputy sheriff [ [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/mattwarner.htm] "Willard Erastus Christiansen was born in Ephraim, Utah to a Swedish father and German mother – both Mormon converts."]
* Nicholaus de Meyer - 1676 burgomaster of New York [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/Publications/cronau/cronau3.html] "...numerous Germans, of whom several held responsible positions in the Dutch West Indian Trading Company. There were also German physicians, lawyers and merchants. One of the latter, Nicholaus de Meyer, a native of Hamburg, became in 1676 burgomaster of New York."]
* Dr. Carl Adolph Douai - educational reformer, abolitionist, newspaper editor, and labor leaderFact|date=September 2008
* Fred and August Duesenberg - car buildersFact|date=September 2008
* Friedrich Ernst - "Father of German Immigration to Texas", arriving in 1831 [ [http://www.honkytonks.org/showpages/accordion.htm] "In Texas, there were several substantial waves of German immigration. The first, when Friedrich Ernst, "Father of German Immigration to Texas," arrived in Texas in 1831 and received a grant of more than 4,000 acres (16 km²) in what is now Austin County. He set about encouraging other Germans to join him. This tract of land formed the nucleus of what is now known as the German Belt."]
* Henry Francis Fisher - notable German Texan in Houston, Texas, where he was consul for the Hanseatic League, became acting treasurer of the San Saba Company [ [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/FF/ffi17.html] "...born in Kassel, Hesse, in 1805. He left Europe late in 1833 and spent a year each in London and New York and two years in New Orleans. In 1837 or early 1838 he came to Houston, Texas, where he was consul for the Hanseatic League (modern-day Germany). He became interested in the exploration and colonization of the San Saba area and in 1839 was acting treasurer of the San Saba Company, which was later reorganized as the San Saba Colonization Company."]
* Meyer Guggenheim (1828 - 1905) statesman, patriarch of what became known as the Guggenheim family [ [http://www.nysun.com/article/8142] "Meyer, though a native speaker of German, was Swiss-German."]
* Ernst Gruene - founded Gruene, Texas [ [http://www.gruenetexas.com/history.html] "Arriving in Texas in the mid 1840s, German farmers became the first settlers of what is now known as Gruene, Texas. Ernst Gruene, a German immigrant, and his bride Antoinette, had reached the newly established city of New Braunfels in 1845, but land was scarce. Thus, Ernst and his two sons purchased land just down river, and Ernst built the first home in Gruene in early fachwerk style. His second son, Henry D. Gruene, built his home (now Gruene Mansion Inn) and planted his surrounding land with cotton. Having become the number one cash crop, the cotton business soon brought 20 to 30 families to Henry D.'s lands."]
* William Hanhardt - was the highest ranking associate of the Chicago Outfit inside the Chicago Police Department
* Bruno Hauptmann - Lindbergh kidnapper [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9039540] "German-born American carpenter and burglar"]

* Friedrich Hecker - revolutionary [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/hecker.html German American Corner: HECKER, Friedrich Karl Franz (1811-1881) ] ]
* Michael Hillegas - first Treasurer of the United States [ [http://www.pgs.org/culture.asp] "A Pennsylvania German named Michael Hillegas was the first Continental Treasurer. "]
* Lena Kleinschmidt - jewel thief
* Fritz Kuhn - German American Bund leader [ [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005684 German American Bund ] ]
* Maria Kraus-Boelté - pioneer of Froebel education in the United States, and helped promote kindergarten training as suitable for study at university level
* Johann Lederer - explorer [ [http://www.vahistorical.org/lederer.htm] "Lederer, a German-born physician"] [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/Publications/cronau/cronau3.html] "The unknown interior of the latter colony was first explored by a young German scholar, Johann Lederer. who, born in Hamburg, came to Jamestown in 1668."]
* Jacob Leisler - colonist [ [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/l/leisler.html] "German-born Jacob Leisler"]
* Frank J. Loesch - law enforcement official, reformer and a founder of the Chicago Crime Commission
* Kurt Frederick Ludwig - head of the "Joe K" spy ring in the United States in 1940-41
* Paul Machemehl - German-Texan, rancher and civic leader
* Fredericka Mandelbaum - entrepreneur and criminal
* Nicola Marschall - designer of the first national flag and uniform of the Confederacy ["Hume, Edgar Erskine, "The German Artist Who Designed the Confederate Flag and Uniform". The American-German Review, August, 1940."]
* Christene Mayer - aka "Kid Glove Rosey", famous thief and associate of "Black" Lena Kleinschmidt
* Christian Ludwig Meyer - founded New Ulm, Minnesota in 1854
* Benjamin Kurtz Miller - philanthropist
* Burchard Miller - Texas land pioneer
* Peter Minuit - Director-General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/mtoz/minuit.html] "German-American"]
* Charles Mohr - pharmacist [ [http://www.2003.botanyconference.org/engine/search/detail.php?aid=247] "Charles Mohr (1824-1901), German-born Mobile pharmacist and botanist, is best known for the monumental Plant Life of Alabama"]
* Pat Nixon - former First Lady of the United States [ [http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=38] "Irish, German; Pat Nixon's mother immigrated from the Ober Rosbach region of Germany..."]

* Franz Daniel Pastorius - pioneer and founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania
* Charles Reiser - safecracker
* Walter Reuther - labor leader [ [http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Du-Ha/German-Americans.html] "In future years many leaders of American labor were German American, including Walter Reuther"]
* Reinhold O. Schmidt - 1950s UFO "contactee"
* August Schrader [ [http://landandseacollection.com/id149.html] "The founder, August Schrader was a creative and inventive German immigrant"]
* Carl Schurz - politician, newspaper editor, Civil War general [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/mtoz/schurz.html] "Carl Schurz, one of the most celebrated German Americans"]
* Margarethe Meyer Schurz - established the kindergarten system in the United States.
* Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. - Lindbergh kidnapping investigator [ [http://afrikan.i-dentity.com/wwwboard/messages/1764.html] "the Schwarzkopfs emigrated to the US long before the rise of Nazism, are not known to have voiced Nazi leanings, and were a respected part of the substantial German-American community in New Jersey."
* Dutch Schultz - New York City-area gangster
* Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels - "Texas-Carl" was an Austro-Hungarian Lieutenant General and founder of the town New Braunfels, Texas
* Benjamin Steitz - Cincinnati, Ohio land pioneer [ [http://www.aquinas-multimedia.com/church/oldmy.html] "Germans have been a part of Cincinnati's history from its very beginning when Benjamin Steitz landed the first settlers in 1788."]
* Jacob Sternberger - historian and one of the original Forty-Eighters
* Ida Straus - victim of the sinking of the RMS Titanic
* Isidor Straus - former co-owner of Macy's and victim of the sinking of the RMS Titanic
* Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss - prolific contract killer for Murder, Inc
* John Sutter - settler/colonizer [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9070519] "German-born Swiss pioneer settler and colonizer in California"]
* Count Ludwig Joseph von Boos-Waldeck - German noble descended from a line of Rhenish Knights and nobles dating back to the thirteenth century, organized the Adelsverein, to promote German emigration to Texas [ [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/AA/ufa1.html] "Accordingly, in May 1842 the association sent two of its members, counts Joseph of Boos-Waldeck and Victor August of Leiningen-Westerburg-Alt-Leiningen to Texas to investigate the country firsthand and purchase a tract of land for the settlement of immigrants."]
* Andrew Von Etter - Boston mobsterFact|date=September 2008
* Berthe von Ronge - established the kindergarten system in the United StatesFact|date=September 2008
* Johann Printz von Buchau - successor of Peter Minuit in New Sweden [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/Publications/cronau/cronau3.html] "His successor in New Sweden was a German nobleman, Johann Printz von Buchau, a giant in body and energy. During his regime, which lasted from 1643 to 1654, the colony New Sweden became very successful..."]
* Paul Warburg - banker [ [http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/2/europe.htm] "In 1910, a German immigrant, Paul Warburg"]
* Louis J. Weichmann - chief witnesses for the prosecution in the conspiracy trial of the Abraham Lincoln assassination
* Conrad Weiser - pioneer, farmer, monk, tanner, judge, and soldierFact|date=September 2008
* Lewis Wetzel - frontiersman and Indian fighter [ [http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/spring97/wetzel.html] "John Wetzel was a German Palatinate emigrant who had survived indentured servitude and had become successful enough to win the hand of Captain Bonnet's daughter in marriage."]
* Gus Winkler - St. Louis mobsterFact|date=September 2008
* Adam Worth - gentleman criminalFact|date=September 2008
* David Ziegler - first mayor of Cincinnati. Revolutionary War Veteran and aide to president George WashingtonFact|date=September 2008
* John Peter Zenger - printer, publisher, editor and journalist in New York City [ [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/zengeraccount.html] "German immigrant printer named John Peter Zenger"]

Inventors

* David Alter - Inventor, physicist and doctor [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/143/000161657/] "German-Swiss Heritage"]
* Emile Berliner - disc record gramophone inventor [ [http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gramophone.htm] "On November 8 1887, Emile Berliner, a German immigrant working in Washington DC..."]
* Ottmar Mergenthaler - linotype inventor [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9052119] "Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German inventor"]
* Gustave Whitehead - aviation pioneer, built first motorised plane [ [http://www.unmuseum.org/gustave.htm] "Gustave Whitehead, a poor, German immigrant"]
* Dietrich Gruen - timepiece or wristwatch maker. Founded the Gruen Watch Company in Ohio [ [http://www.pixelp.com pixel panache | design, illustration, photography, websites - Cincinnati, Ohio ] ]

Military

* Dankmar Adler - architect and Civil War participant who trained Frank Lloyd Wright.

* Otto Boehler - United States Army private awarded the Medal of Honor for actions during the Moro Rebellion during the Philippine-American war
* Johann August Heinrich Heros von Borcke - Major in the Confederate army [ [http://aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=1082] "German-Prussian officer, served under General Jeb Stuart"]
* George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) - United States Army cavalry commander [ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Armstrong_Custer] "Originally his ancestry came from Westphalia in Northern Germany. They emigrated and arrived in America in the 17th century. The original family name was "Küster"."]
* Konrad Dannenberg - rocket pioneer and member of the German Rocket Team, brought to the USA under Operation Paperclip
* Walter Dornberger - leader of Germany's V2 rocket program and other projects at the Peenemünde Army Research Center, brought to the USA under Operation Paperclip
* Johann de Kalb - Major General in the American Revolution [ [http://cazoo.org/Germans/JohanndeKalb.html Cazoo.org: German-American Cultural Center ] ]
* Paul A. Frank - Colonel of the German Rangers, 52nd New York Infantry [ [http://aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=363&from=results] "Birth State: Germany, Death Date: 7/7/1875"]
* Thomas W. Hartmann - Brigadier General, lawyer and officer in the United States Air Force Reserve
* Friedrich Hecker - lawyer, politician, revolutionary and Civil War colonel
* Lewis Heermann - commissioned Surgeon's Mate in the United States Navy 8 February 1802. In 1942, the destroyer USS "Heermann" was named in his honor.
* Daniel Hiester - political and military leader from the Revolutionary War period to the early 19th Century
* John Hiester - military leader from the Revolutionary War period to the early 19th Century
* Ralph Ignatowski - soldier,of polish descent, World War II veteran, best friend of John Bradley (Iwo Jima)
* Herman Kahn - military strategist and systems theorist
* August Kautz - Brigadier General /Union Army officer [ [http://www.delawaresaengerbund.org/GermanAmericanHTML/GermanImmigrationInThe19thCentury.html German-American History ] ]
* Eugene H. C. Leutze - Admiral of the United States Navy, appointed to the United States Naval Academy by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863
* Jerry M. Linenger - M.D., M.S.S.M., M.P.H., Ph.D. (Captain, Medical Corps, USN, Ret.) and a former NASA astronaut
* Peter Muhlenberg - clergyman, a soldier and a politician of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Post-Revolutionary eras in Pennsylvania.
* Chester W. Nimitz - Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces for the United States and Allied forces during World War II. [ [http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/KADE/unit19/apen19-j.html] ]
* John J. Pershing - officer in the United States Army, rose to the highest rank ever held in the United States Army - General of the Armies [ [http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm] "Notable among many German-Americans who have shaped our military to meet later challenges were John J. Pershing, whose ancestral family name was Pfoerschin."]
* Molly Pitcher (Mary Ludwig Hays) - American Revolutionary soldier
* Friedrich Adolf Riedesel - regiment commander of the Duchy of Brunswick (Braunschweig) unit hired by the British during the American Revolution
* Edward S. Salomon - a Union brigadier general in the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* Frederick C. Salomon - a Union brigadier general in the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* Alexander Schimmelfennig - American Civil War general in the Union ArmyFact|date=September 2008
* Harry Schmidt (USMC) - US Marine Corps generalFact|date=September 2008
* Harold G. Schrier - officer in the United States Marine Corps, recipient of the Navy Cross, the nation's second highest award for valor, and a combat veteran of World War II and the Korean War. He is most noted as one of the six Marines who raised the first American flag on Mount Suribachi, during the Battle of Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945.
* Theodore Schwan - officer who served with distinction during the American Civil War, Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American WarFact|date=September 2008
* Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. - United States Army General
* Albert Sieber - Chief of Scouts for much of the Apache Wars and tracked Geronimo

* Franz Sigel - teacher, newspaperman, politician, and served as a Union general in the American Civil War [ [http://www.russscott.com/~rscott/26thwis/fransigl.htm] "military officer/Union general"]
* Carl Andrew Spaatz - general in World War IIFact|date=September 2008
* Adolph von Steinwehr - served as a Union general in the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben - German-Prussian General who served with George Washington in the American Revolutionary War and is credited with teaching the Continental Army the essentials of military drill and discipline. [ [http://www.steubensociety.org] "German-Prussian General who served with George Washington in the American Revolutionary War and is credited with teaching the Continental Army the essentials of military drill and discipline. He reorganised the Continental Army and guided it to victory."]
* Gustav Tafel - colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* Max Weber - Brigadier General in the Union army during the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* Godfrey Weitzel - Major General in the Union army during the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* August Willich - general in the Union Army during the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* Jurgen Wilson - Union Army officer during the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* Henry Wirz - (born Heinrich Hartmann Wirz) Confederate officer tried and executed in the aftermath of the American Civil War [ [http://www.us-civilwar.com/wirz.htm Heinrich Hartmann Wirz]
* Elmo Zumwalt - Admiral and later the 19th Chief of Naval Operations in the U.S. Navy, playing a major part in the Vietnam WarFact|date=September 2008

Philosophers

* Felix Adler - rationalist intellectual [ [http://www.ecfs.org/125/felixadler.asp] "Felix Adler, a German-American educator"]
* Hannah Arendt - political theorist [ [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/arendt.htm] "Arendt, a Jew, gained fame as a German-Jewish refugee scholar"]
* Ernst Bloch - Marxist philosopher [ [http://www.xs4all.nl/~maxb/div-ideal-e-bloch.htm] "The phrase comes from the German philosopher Ernst Bloch"]
* Rudolf Carnap - philosopher [ [http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/carnap.htm] "Rudolf Carnap, a German-born philosopher and naturalized US citizen"]
* Adolf Grünbaum - philosopher
* Francis Lieber - jurist/political philosopher [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9048175] "Francis Lieber German-born US political philosopher"]
* Nicholas Rescher - philosopher

Politicians

* John Peter Altgeld - former Union troop, Illinois governor and leading figure of the Progressive Era movementFact|date=September 2008
* Gary Bauer - politicianFact|date=September 2008
* Martin Baum - former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, fought with General Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers [ [http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/GermAmChron.htm] "1806 - ...Martin Baum, riverboat pioneer on the Ohio and Mississippi, becomes mayor of Cincinnati"] [ [http://www.cetconnect.org/television/zinzinnati.asp] "Beginning in 1795, when Martin Baum, a Maryland German industrialist, came to Cincinnati and quickly established himself as one Cincinnati's wealthiest and most influential citizens. Through his agents in Baltimore, New Orleans and Philadelphia, Baum attracted even greater numbers of German immigrants to work in his various enterprises - steamboats, a sugar refinery, a foundry and real estate. Soon, Cincinnati's German population began to soar."]
* John Boehner - Republican House Majority Leader in the 109th Congress, and a U.S. Representative from Ohio's 8th congressional district [ [http://www.metafilter.com/48969/Rep-John-Boehner-Gets-Huge-Overnight] Rep. John Boehner Gets Huge Overnight]
* William C. Bouck - governor of the New York from 1843 to 1844 [ [http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/GermAmChron.htm] "1842 - William Bouck (Bauk) becomes Governor of New York"]
* Louis Brandeis - United States Supreme Court justice [ [http://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=281] "Born into an affluent German-Jewish family in Louisville"]
* Martin Grove Brumbaugh - Pennsylvania's 25th Governor (Republican)Fact|date=September 2008
* Warren E. Burger - Former Chief Justice of the United States
* Henry Burk - former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from PennsylvaniaFact|date=September 2008
* Earl Lauer Butz - Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald FordFact|date=September 2008
* Hiester Clymer - former political leader from the Commonwealth of PennsylvaniaFact|date=September 2008
* Kent Conrad - United States senator from North DakotaFact|date=September 2008
* William Q. Dallmeyer - Missouri politicianFact|date=September 2008
* Tom Daschle - U.S. Senator from South Dakota from 1987 to 2005, former Senate Majority LeaderFact|date=September 2008
* Gerhard Anton (Anthony) Eickhoff - journalist, editor, author, lawyer, United States Congress representative of New York City, United States Treasury auditor and New York City Fire Commissioner
* Dwight Eisenhower - US President [ [http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm] "... a descendant of Hans Nikolas Eisenhauer."]
* Jesse E. Eschbach - judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana and a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
* Dick Gephardt - U.S. congressman from 1977 to 2005 [ [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramGHI.htm] "His father, Lou Gephardt, was the grandson of German immigrants"] [ [http://www.wargs.com/political/gephardt.html Ancestry of Dick Gephardt ] ]
* James Lawrence Getz - member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania
* William Goebel - controversial politician who served as Governor of Kentucky for a few days in 1900 before being assassinated
* Richard W. Guenther - nineteenth century politician and pharmacist from Wisconsin
* Chuck Hagel - senior United States Senator from Nebraska [ [http://thehill.com/under-the-dome/glenn-close-and-chuck-norris-push-pet-projects-2006-05-11.html] "Hagel’s name is German."]
* Julius Heil - Governor of Wisconsin from 1939 to 1943Fact|date=September 2008
* Isaac Ellmaker Hiester - political leader in the Commonwealth of PennsylvaniaFact|date=September 2008
* Joseph Hiester - governor of Pennsylvania from 1820 to 1823 [ [http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/GermAmChron.htm] "1820 - Joseph Heister becomes Governor of Pennsylvania"]
* William Muhlenberg Hiester - political and military leader in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
* H. John Heinz III - politician from Pennsylvania, a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives (1971 – 1977) and the United States Senate (1977 – 1991) and son of H. J. Heinz II (heir to the H. J. Heinz Company)
* Herbert Hoover - US President
* Arthur W. Hummel, Jr. - former U.S. Ambassador
* Don Hummel - businessman and politician
* Philip Mayer Kaiser - former US diplomat
* Vera Katz - the 45th mayor of Portland, Oregon
* Henry Kissinger - former Secretary of State ["Born in Fürth, Germany to Jewish parents. Naturalized as US citizen in 1943"]
* Gustav Körner - Lieutenant Governor of Illinois from 1853 to 1857 and one of the original Forty-Eighter
* John Christian Kunkel - former Whig and Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania
* Tom Loeffler - former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from central Texas
* Baron Otfried Hans von Meusebach - Prussian bureaucrat, later an American farmer, politician, and member of the Texas Senate
* Frederick Muhlenberg - minister and politician who was the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
* Peter Muhlenberg - clergyman, a soldier and a politician of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Post-Revolutionary eras in Pennsylvania
* Paul Henry Nitze - Presidential Medal of Freedom [ [http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/nit0bio-1 Paul Nitze Biography - Academy of Achievement ] ]
* Horace Porter - decorated Union soldier and diplomat, the son of David Rittenhouse Porter, a wealthy ironmater who later served as Governor of Pennsylvania
* Luke Ravenstahl - Pittsburgh mayor [ [http://www.wqed.org/mag/features/1106/ravenstahl.shtml] "The surname Ravenstahl, of German origin, might be translated as "steadfast raven" or "steel raven." ... one of only a few German-American mayors in Pittsburgh's history."]
* Jim Risch - former Governor of IdahoFact|date=September 2008
* Nelson Rockefeller - forty-first Vice President of the United States
* Winthrop Rockefeller - politician and philanthropist who served as the first Republican Governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction
* Brian Roehrkasse - spokesman at the United States Justice Department under the administration of George W. Bush [http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2007/04/americans_with_.html] "Americans with Odd German Names"]
* Dana Rohrabacher - Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1989, currently representing California's 46th congressional district
* Theodore Roosevelt - US President [ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynier_Tyson] "Reynier Tyson, born in Krefeld, Germany is the 4th great-grandfather of American President Theodore Roosevelt."]
* Donald Rumsfeld - former Secretary of Defense

* Pierre Salinger - former White House Press Secretary to U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson who served in the U. S. Senate as a Democrat from California briefly in 1964Fact|date=September 2008
* Edward Salomon - Governor of Wisconsin during the Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* Edward S. Salomon - Union brigadier general in the Civil War, later became governor of Washington Territory and a California legislatorFact|date=September 2008
* George E. Sangmeister-Senator and Congressman from Illinois. Served in various elected public offices from 1972-1994Fact|date=September 2008
* Harry Sauthoff - lawyer, Wisconsin State Senator, also served in the United States House of RepresentativesFact|date=September 2008
* Gustav Schleicher - United States Representative from Texas, serving briefly in Texas legislature and veteran of the Confederate Army [ [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000129 "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress"] ]
* Adolph H. Schmitz - former Governor of Wisconsin [ [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/schmitt-schneid.html The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Schmitt to Schneid ] ]
* Gustav A. Schneebeli - former U.S. Representative from the state of PennsylvaniaFact|date=September 2008
* Mark S. Schweiker - 44th Governor of the PennsylvaniaFact|date=September 2008
* Richard Schultz Schweiker - former U.S. Congressman and Senator representing the state of Pennsylvania, later the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Cabinet of President Ronald ReaganFact|date=September 2008
* John Andrew Shulze - Pennsylvania political leader and 6th Governor of Pennsylvania, a member of the Muhlenberg family political dynastyFact|date=September 2008
* Carl Schurz - statesman and reformer, and Union Army general in the American Civil WarFact|date=September 2008
* August Siemering - was a writer, political leader and Forty-EighterFact|date=September 2008
* Richard Fred Suhrheinrich - judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
* Robert F. Wagner - New York Senator from 1927 until 1949Fact|date=September 2008
* Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. - politician who has served as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and Governor of ConnecticutFact|date=September 2008
* Wendell Willkie - lawyer and the Republican nominee for the 1940 presidential election
* Robert Zoellick - the eleventh president of the World Bank, former United States Deputy Secretary of State and U.S. Trade RepresentativeFact|date=September 2008

Religious

* Conrad Beissel - religious leader who in 1732 founded the Ephrata Community in Pennsylvania [ [http://ephratacloister.org/history.htm] "Conrad Beissel, founder of Ephrata, was born in Eberbach am Neckar, Germany, in March 1691."]
* Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism, and a founding member of the Confessing Church (and not actually a German American although he did visit and study in America for a while before World War II).
* August Ernst - former president of Northwestern University and ordained minister [ [http://www.watertownhistory.org/Articles/Ernst,%20August.htm] "Rev. August F. Ernst, President of Northwestern University; born in Hanover June 25, 1841; educated in the colleges of Celle and at the University of Gottingen; taught one year in Germany; then in 1863, came to America and located in New York City, where he was engaged in the holy ministry. In 1864, he was ordained at Pottstown, Penn.; preached in New York City until 1868; for ten months thereafter, he had pastoral charge of a congregation at Albany, N.Y., then came to Watertown."]
* Barbara Heck - founded the first Methodist church in New York [ [http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/GermAmChron.htm] "1768 - Barbara Heck, German-lrish, founds first Methodist church in New York"]
* Adolf Hoenecke - served as the head of Wisconsin Synod congregations from 1878 - 1908 [ [http://www.watertownhistory.org/Articles/Hoenecke,%20Adolf.htm] "Adolf Hoenecke (1835-1908) received his theological training at the University of Halle in Germany. One of his teachers was Friedrich A. G. Tholuck (1799-1877), who opposed rationalism and yet favored the union of the Lutherans and the Reformed. Young Hoenecke was sent to Wisconsin by the Berlin Missionary Society, but very soon he opposed the unionism of his teacher and the German mission societies and became a truly confessional Lutheran. He served as pastor of Wisconsin Synod congregations in Farmington, Watertown, and Milwaukee. His learning and confessionalism made him the natural choice to head the Wisconsin Synod seminary, first from 1866 to 1870 in Watertown, and then again from 1878 to 1908, first in Milwaukee and then in Wauwatosa. For many years he was the editor of the Wisconsin Synod's Gemeindeblatt. As seminary director he was instrumental in founding the journal of theology known as the Theologische Quartalschrift, which continues to this day as the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly."]
* Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. - Christian missionary to China and noted Sinologist
* Johannes Kelpius - Pietist, mystic, musician, and writer, interested in the occult, botany, and astronomy, came to believe with his followers in the "Society of the Woman in the Wilderness"
* Kathryn Kuhlman - 20th Century faith healer and Pentecostal arm of Protestant Christianity [ [http://www.online-bibleconcordance.com/Ministers/KathrynKuhlman.aspx] "She was born in Concordia, Missouri to German parents and died in Tulsa, following open-heart surgery."]
* Barbara Heinemann Landmann - spiritual leader of the Amana Colonies
* Christian Metz - inspirationalist [ [http://amanacolonies.com/history.htm] "Led by Christian Metz, they hoped to find religious freedom in America and left Germany in 1843-44"]
* Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg - Lutheran clergyman [ [http://www.bookrags.com/biography-heinrich-melchior-muhlenberg/index.html] "German-born American clergyman"]
* St. John Neumann - Bishop of Philadelphia (1852-60) and the first American bishop to be canonized
* George Rapp - founder of the religious sect called Harmonists, Harmonites, Rappites, or the Harmony Society [Robert Paul Sutton, "Communal Utopias and the American Experience: Religious Communities" (2003) p. 38]
* George Erik Rupp - educator and theologian, the former President of Rice University and later of Columbia University, and president of the International Rescue Committee
* Theodore Schneider - was the second bishop of the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
* Francis Xavier Seelos - Roman-Catholic martyred priest
* C. F. W. Walther - Lutheran clergyman, professor, seminary president, editor, and first president of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod.
* Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf - founded the town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where his daughter Benigna organized the school which would become Moravian College [ [http://www.zinzendorf.com/countz.htm] "Zinzendorf himself visited St. Thomas, and later visited America. There he sought to unify the German Protestants of Pennsylvania, even proposing a sort of "council of churches" where all would preserve their unique denominational practices, but would work in cooperation rather than competition. He founded the town of Bethlehem, where his daughter Benigna organized the school which would become Moravian College."]

cientists/researchers

* Reinhold Aman - chemical engineer and publisher of "Maledicta" [ [http://sonic.net/maledicta/aman.html] "Reinhold Albert Aman was born on April 8, 1936, in Fürstenzell (Bavaria), Germany. He grew up in Straubing and Oberschneiding, studied chemical engineering in Augsburg, and worked in Frankfurt and Munich."]
* Othmar Ammann - civil engineer [de icon [http://en.structurae.de/persons/data/index.cfm?id=d000001 Structurae [en: Othmar Herrmann Ammann (1879-196) ] ]
* Walter Baade - astronomer [ [http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v25n4/aas183/abs/S3402.html] "Baade wanted to go there to observe with it himself, but his German citizenship prevented him"]
* Max Bentele - pioneer in the field of jet aircraft turbines and mechanical engineering [ [http://www.powerset.com/explore/go/Max-Bentele] "Dr. Max Bentele (born Ulm, Germany January 15 1909 - died New York, USA May 19 2006 at age 97) was a notable pioneer in the field of jet aircraft turbines and mechanical engineering"]
* Hans Albrecht Bethe - physicist [ [http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-9310197] "German-born American theoretical physicist"]
* Felix Bloch - physicist [ [http://library.cern.ch/archives/dg/bloch.html CERN Scientific Information Service ] ]

* Franz Boas - anthropology pioneer, often called the "Father of American Anthropology" [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/boas.html German American Corner: BOAS, Franz (1858-1942) ] ]
* Karl Brandt - economist [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/969/000161486/] "German-born American citizen"]
* Florian Cajori - mathematician [ [http://140.90.235.27/edocs/HASSLER7.htm NOAA Central Library ] ]
* Hans Georg Dehmelt - physicist [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029760] "German-born American physicist who shared one-half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1989 with the German physicist Wolfgang Paul"]
* Max Delbrück - biophysicist [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029810] "Max Delbruck German-born US biologist, a pioneer in the study of molecular genetics."] [ [http://www.mdc-berlin.de/en/about_the_mdc/history/index.html] "The MDC is named after the German-American Nobel Prize winner Max Delbrück."]
* Krafft Arnold Ehricke - rocket-propulsion engineer [ [http://www.astronautix.com/astros/ehricke.htm] "Krafft Arnold Ehricke American Engineer. Born 24 March 1917. Died December 1984. Personal: Male, Married, Three daughters. Born in Berlin, Germany. BEng"]
* Paul R. Ehrlich - renowned entomologist
* Albert Einstein - theoretical physicist ["Born in Ulm, Germany to Jewish parents. Einstein was German citizen until 1933, he also held the Swiss citizenship since 1901 and became a naturalized US citizen in 1940"]
* Ernst R. G. Eckert - scientist [ [http://www.powerset.com/explore/go/Ernst-R.-G.-Eckert] "Nationality: United States, Germany"]
* Otto Eckstein - economist [ [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/eckstein.htm] "German-born Harvard economist and developer of large-scale macroeconometric models (for which he founded a forecasting corporation, Data Resources Inc. (DRI))"]
* George Engelmann - botanist [ [http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/mlc/engelmann/engelmann.html] "German-born botanist"]
* Katherine Esau - botanist [ [http://www.botany.org/bsa/misc/esau.html] "The city was named originally after Katherine the Great who promoted agriculture in the steppes of the Ukraine by inviting settlers from Germany, among them the Mennonites. Dr. Esau's family is Mennonite. Dr. Esau's great-grandfather Aron Esau immigrated to the Ukraine In 1804 from Prussia"]
* Edmond H. Fischer - biochemist [ [http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/march98/fischer.html Edmond Fischer ] ]
* James Franck - physicist [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9035141?query=franck&ct=] "James Franck German-born American physicist"]
* Frieda Fromm-Reichmann - psychoanalyst, founded William Alanson White Institute [ [http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=BAP.014.0379A] "Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1890, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann graduated from medical school at Königsberg, Eastern Prussia, in 1913."]
* Heinrich Göbel - precision mechanic and inventor, an early pioneer who independently developed designs for an incandescent light bulb [ [http://www.technikatlas.de/~ta1/Daten_engl.htm] "1848 - After Göbel had sold his possessions he emigrated with his family on a commercial sailing ship the "J.W.ANDREWS" to America, leaving port in Bremen, Germany on November 13th. 151 German immigrants were on board."]
* Maria Goeppert-Mayer - Nobel Prize-winning physicist [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9051590] "German-born American physicist"]
* Helmut Gröttrup - rocket scientist
* Augustin Herrman - surveyor, who made the first reliable maps of the colonies of Maryland and Virginia [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/Publications/cronau/cronau3.html] "To the most prominent men of that period belonged also Augustin Herrman, a surveyor, who made the first reliable maps of the colonies of Maryland and Virginia."]
* Herman Hollerith - statistician [ [http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0241,black,39111,1.html] "Herman Hollerith was the German American who first automated US census information"]
* Karen Horney - psychoanalyst [ [http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/horney.html] "German-American psychiatrist"]
* Kurt Koffka - psychologist [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9045869] "German psychologist and cofounder"]
* Wolfgang Köhler - psychologist [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9045891] "German psychologist"]
* Heinrich Klüver - psychologist, largely credited with introducing Gestalt psychology to the United States in the early twentieth century [ [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom.php?book=biomems&page=hkluver.html] "Heinrich Klüver, son of Wilhelm and Dorothes (Wübbers) Klüver, was born on May 25, 1897, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. He arrived in the United States in 1923, married Cessa Feyerabend on February 4, 1927, and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1934."]
* Polykarp Kusch - physicist [ [http://www.nndb.com/people/782/000099485/] "Naturalized US Citizen - Birthplace: Blankenburg, Germany"]
* Willy Ley - science writer and space advocate who helped popularise rocketry and spaceflight [ [http://www.astronautix.com/astros/ley.htm] "Willy Ley was an extremely effective populariser of the idea of space flight - first in Germany and then in the United States. Ley was born in Berlin. Fluent in German, English, Italian, French, and Russian, he studied astronomy, physics, zoology, and paleontology at the University of Berlin."] [ [http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Ley.html] "German engineer who was a founder of the German Rocket Society. In 1934, he emigrated to the United States rather than pursuing military applications of rocketry. In the U.S., he became a popularizer of space exploration and travel, writing many popular books."]
* Jacques Loeb - physiologist and biologist [ [http://www.loebtree.com/oloeb.html#jacques] "German-born U.S. biologist noted chiefly for his experimental work on artificial parthenogenesis"]
* Hugo Münsterberg - psychologist, pioneered applied psychology
* Robert Oppenheimer - physicist and director of the Manhattan Project, also known as "The Father of the Atomic Bomb" [ [http://www.atomicarchive.com/Bios/Oppenheimer.shtml] "Julius Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York City on April 22, 1904. His parents, Julius S. Oppenheimer, a wealthy German textile merchant, and Ella Friedman, an artist, were of Jewish descent but did not observe the religious traditions."]
* Charles Francis Richter - seismologist, inventor of the Richter magnitude scale
* David Rittenhouse - astronomer, inventor, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman, public official and first director of the United States Mint [ [http://www.pgs.org/culture.asp] "The first approximately accurate calculation of the distance from the earth to the sun was made by David Rittenhouse in 1769"] [ [http://www.ushistory.org/germantown/people/rittenhouse.htm William Rittenhouse ] ]
* Hermann Irving Schlesinger - inorganic chemist, working in boron chemistry, co-discovered sodium borohydride in 1940.

* Frank Schlesinger - astronomer [ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Schlesinger] "Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest "The name is so difficult for those who do not speak German that I am usually called sles'in-jer, to rime with messenger. It is, of course, of German origin and means 'a native of Schlesien' or Silesia. In that language the pronunciation is shlayzinger, to rime with singer." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)"]
* Alfred Schütz - philosopher/sociologist [ [http://rss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/16/1/45 Alfred schutz, Austrian Economists and the Knowledge Problem - Knudsen 16 (1): 45 - Rationality and Society ] ]
* Jonas Schütz - early mining expert [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/Publications/Jamestown/mineral.html] "The German mineral specialists Jonas Schütz and Gregor Bona (Gut) accompanied Martin Frobisher, the seeker after the Northwest Passage to China in 157.7"] [ [http://www.chemheritage.org/pubs/magazine/feature_archaeology.html] "In a pattern that would dominate English exploration of the New World, German mining experts managed or supervised assay work, and, as at other English settlements, German miners performed the labor."]
* Frederick Seitz - physicist, co-inventor of the Wigner-Seitz unit cell, which is an important concept in solid state physicsFact|date=September 2008
* Herbert Simon - political scientistFact|date=September 2008
* Charles Proteus Steinmetz - electrical engineer, fostered development of alternating currentFact|date=September 2008
* Joseph Strauss - structural engineer and designer, chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge [ [http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/10great/2006-10-05-german-places_x.htm] "Two of San Francisco's best-known landmarks were built by Germans: Joseph Strauss designed the 1937 Golden Gate Bridge, and Bernard Maybeck, son of a German immigrant, designed the Palace of Fine Arts."]
* Otto Stern - physicist and Nobel laureate, known for his studies of molecular beams [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/mtoz/stern.html] "Stern was born in Sorau, Germany (now Zary, Poland), and educated at the University of Breslau. He taught at Technische Hochschule in Zürich and at the universities of Frankfurt and Hamburg. In 1933 he moved to the U.S., accepting the position of research professor of physics at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, Pa."]
* Frederick Traugott Pursh - botanist [ [http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/wildflwr/species/cleoserr.htm] "German botanist"]
* Wernher von Braun - physicist [ [http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/vonbraun_disney_020813.html] "Wernher von Braun, the German physicist who oversaw most of the achievements of the US space program until his death in 1977"]
* David Wechsler - psychologist [ [http://www.faqs.org/qa/qa-5864.html what is wais Who is wais For? What does "Wais"... - Q&A ] ]
* Victor Frederick Weisskopf - World War II physicist, working at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, and later campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons; medal received in 1979 [ [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/vweisskopf.html] "Growing up in Vienna in a well-to-do Jewish family..." [http://education.guardian.co.uk/obituary/story/0,12212,750171,00.html] "One of the most brilliant Jewish scientists to be driven from Germany by Nazi persecution..."]
* Albert Wohlstetter - nuclear scientistFact|date=September 2008
* Max August Zorn - algebraist, group theorist, and numerical analystFact|date=September 2008

ports

* Max Baer - boxer, heavyweight champion of the world.
* Heinie Beckendorf - former Major League Baseball catcher
* Joe Benz - former pitcher for the Chicago White Sox; threw a no-hitter
* Jana Bieger - two-time World Champion artistic gymnast
* Lou Bierbauer - former second baseman in Major League Baseball during the late 1880s and 1890s; credited with giving the Pittsburgh Pirates their name
* Eric Bischoff - entrepreneur; former professional wrestling booker, producer, and personality
* Uwe Blab - former NBA center
* Mike Blowers - former Major League Baseball third baseman and first baseman; current Seattle Mariners radio commentator
* Jim Boeheim - Syracuse University NCAA basketball coach
* Taylor Buchholz - Major League Baseball pitcher
* Jud Buechler - former guard/forward with the NBA Chicago Bulls
* Fritz Buelow - former Major League Baseball catcher
* Dave Butz - National Football League defensive lineman, selected to the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team
* Gunther Cunningham - football defensive coordinator for the NFL Kansas City Chiefs
* Fritz Crisler - NCAA football coach
* David Diehl - football player and NFL offensive lineman [ [http://www.hr/darko/etf/diehl.html] "Chronicle: Dave, you are Croatian American, tell us about your background? Diehl: I grew up on the south side of Chicago. I’m fifty percent Croatian and fifty percent German. I went to grammar school and High School (Brother Rice) with some Croatian friends. So I have been following Croatian heritage ever since I can remember. That’s why people couldn’t figure out why I have Diehl as my last name and Croatian GRB tattooed on my left arm. I grew up going to St. Jerome’s Croatian Catholic Church with my Grandmother. Her maiden name was Semanic and she was from one of the Croatian islands. I remember going to St. Jerome’s and having palacinke for breakfast. My grandmother married Grandpa who was Ante Bekavac from small village Bekavci near Lovrec in Imotski, Dalmacija, Croatia. My father Jerry who passed away in August was hundred percent German on both sides."]
* Dan Dierdorf - former NFL football player and current television sportscaster
* Barney Dreyfuss - baseball executive [ [http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=1385&pid=18142] "Not bad press for a man who just twenty-four years before had arrived from Freiburg, Germany with just a few dollars in his pocket."]
* Conrad Dobler - former American football offensive lineman
* Ryne Duren - former relief pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Justin Duchscherer - Major League Baseball pitcher
* Dale Earnhardt - American race car driver in NASCAR's top division
* David Eckstein - Major League Baseball player and 2006 World Series MVP
* Gertrude Ederle - Olympic Gold Medal winner and first woman to swim the English Channel [ [http://german.about.com/library/blfam_geramDEF.htm] "was the first woman to swim the English Channel. The German-American swimming champ was born on October 23, 1905 in New York City, one of six children. Her father was a butcher from Germany. When Gertrude was eight, while visiting her grandmother in Germany, she fell into a pond, a fateful experience that led her to learn to swim. At the Paris Olympics in 1924 she won gold in the 400-meter freestyle relay, and bronze in the 100 m and 400 m individual freestyle events. In her 1926 Channel swim she beat the men's record by more than two hours. She held the women's record until 1950, when Florence Chadwick crossed the Channel in 13 hours and 20 minutes."]

* Kid Elberfeld - "The Tabasco Kid", former shortstop in Major League Baseball [ [http://www.beckett.com/news/reportcard/archive.asp?a=7792&s=62 BGS The Report Card - December 8, 2006 ] ]
* Joe Engel - former left-handed pitcher and scout in Major League Baseball who spent nearly his entire career with the Washington Senators
* Bob Falkenburg - tennis star and 1948 Wimbledon Champion
* Oscar Emil "Happy" Felsch - American center fielder for the Chicago White Sox, best known for his involvement in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal.
* Kirk Ferentz - American college football head coach of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes
* Brad Friedel - U.S. National, MLS and English Premier League Soccer (Football) goalkeeper
* Frank Frisch - former Major League Baseball player and manager [ [http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/GermAmChron.htm] "1929 -...baseball stars: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, Frank Frisch, all of German descent"]
* Gene Garber - former Major League Baseball player
* Ron Gardenhire - former New York Mets player and current Minnesota Twins manager.
* Lou Gehrig - Major League Baseball player [ [http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/lougehrigessay.html] "Lou Gehrig's life, from the poor German boy in Yorkville to the famous star playing America's favorite pastime. Christina was born in 1881 in Wiltser, Schleswig-Holstein, a province of pre-World War I Germany, near the German-Danish border. She emigrated to the United States in 1899. Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig was born in 1867 in Adelsheim, Baden, and came to America in October of 1888."]
* Charlie Getzein - former Major League Baseball pitcher
* Steffi Graf - former World No. 1 ranked female tennis player who won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, second among male and female players
* Harry Greb - boxer, middleweight champion
* Bob Griese - Hall of Fame quarterback
* Charlie Grimm - former Major League Baseball player
* Al Groh - current NCCA Virginia football head coach and former NFL coach
* Heinie Groh - third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants
* Ernie Grunfeld - former NBA player [ [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/grunfeld.html Ernie Grunfeld ] ]
* Travis Hafner - Cleveland Indians designated hitter
* Archie Hahn - one of the best sprinters in the early 20th century
* Noodles Hahn - former pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Marcus Hahnemann - soccer goalkeeper in the British Premier League [ [http://www.baldyank.com/article.php] "Marcus' surname comes from his German roots, with his parents leaving Hamburg 35 years ago"]
* Hinkey Haines - NFL football player and Major League Baseball player
* Roy Hartzell - Major League Baseball player from 1906 to 1916
* Harry Heilmann - Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player and World War I Veteran
* Fred Heimach - former MLB pitcher and part of the "Murderer's Row" Yankee teams
* Keith Heinrich - NFL tight end
* John Heisman - football player, coach, and namesake of Heisman Trophy
* Kirk Herbstreit - former Ohio State University quarterback and analyst for ESPN's College GameDay
* Tom Herr - former second baseman in Major League Baseball
* Orel Hershiser - former Major League Baseball pitcher [ [http://www.ofspirit.com/tw-betweenthelines.htm] "...before I sat down to enjoy my first home – cooked meal in weeks, my dad let me know, "If you're going to live here, you're going to work and then you're going back to school." He wasn't angry, but true to his German roots, he spoke with unwavering resolve. I didn't argue. I knew better than to argue."]
* Buck Herzog - infielder and manager in Major League Baseball
* Whitey Herzog - Major League Baseball outfielder, scout, coach, manager, general manager and farm system director
* Kirk Hinrich - NBA guard for the Chicago Bulls
* Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch - football running back and receiver for the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Rockets, nicknamed for his unusual running style
* Billy Hoeft - former pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Margaret Hoelzer - Olympic swimmer [ [http://www.timedprelims.com/interviews/nov14margaret.htm] ""Margaret Hoelzer" (3:30:46 PM): hahaha, yeah my grandfather on my dad's side invented the analog computer, it was during WWII and he's german so he never got much credit, but he did do it. "Margaret Hoelzer" (3:31:16 PM): i don't really understand all the technology but it had something to do with the V2 rockets. onehandtoucher (3:32:13 PM): thats pretty sweet, what exactly is an "analog" computer? "Margaret Hoelzer" (3:33:24 PM): from what i understand there are analog computers and digital computers, kinda like tvs....what we use at home is a digital computer, an analog computer in the sense of rockets had something to do with measuring the distance the rocket needed to go to drop the bomb - "Margaret Hoelzer" (3:33:56 PM): like i said, i'm not an engineering major, so i don't know that i fully understand the difference either"]
* Katie Hoff - Olympic medal-winning swimmer
* Jeff Hostetler - former NFL quarterback [ [http://www.hostetler.net/origins/fdescend2.cfm] "Hostelter is a descendant of the Amish-Mennonite immigrant Jacob Hochstetler."]
* Glenn Hubbard - former Atlanta Braves and Oaklands Athletics player and current Braves' coach
* Carl Hubbell - Hall of Fame screwball pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Liezel Huber - professional tennis player
* John Hummel - former Major League Baseball utility player
* Chris Kaman - center for the Los Angeles Clippers in the NBA and a (dual citizen of the United States and of Germany) [ [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/olympics_blog/2008/07/clippers-kaman.html Clippers' Kaman becomes German citizen for Olympics] . "Los Angeles Times". 2008-07-03.] .
* Chuck Klein - former Major League Baseball outfielder
* Jürgen Klinsmann - former premier soccer striker and national German coach [ [http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/world/2005-12-07-klinsmann-cover_x.htm] ...at home in Southern California, he enjoys blissful anonymity.]
* Bob Knepper - former Major League Baseball all-star pitcher [ [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~snowhillcloister/knepperfamily.htm] "The Knepper Family. Among the German Baptists who in 1729 accompanied their founder, Alexander Mack, from Europe to Pennsylvania was a certain Wilhelm Knepper... ..."Bob" Knepper, the noted baseball player, is a descendant"]
* Evel Knievel - motorcycle daredevil [ [http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~gustaf/knievel.html] "Knievel"]
* Chuck Knoblauch - former second baseman in Major League Baseball
* Mark Koenig - former shortstop for the New York Yankees from 1925–1936. [ [http://www.travel-watch.com/1927yanks1.htm] "The team had a pronounced German-American flavor from its owner beer baron Jacob Ruppert to Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mark Koenig, Bob Meusel, George Pipgras, Dutch Ruether and half Germans Waite Hoyt and Earle Combs"]
* Rick Kranitz - Major League Baseball pitching coach
* Dan Kreider - fullback in the National Football League
* Dave Krieg - former NFL Seattle Seahawks quarterback
* Clint Kriewaldt - linebacker in the National Football League
* Harvey Kuenn - player, coach and manager in Major League Baseball
* Bowie Kuhn - former commissioner of Major League Baseball [ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuhn] ]
* Charley Lau - American League catcher and hitting coach, authored 'How to Hit .300' [ [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0140153357] "The Art of Hitting .300 (Paperback) by Charley Lau (Author)..."]
* Craig Lefferts - former Major League Baseball pitcher
* Kory Lichtensteiger - National Football League center for the Denver Broncos
* Jon Lieber - Major League Baseball pitcher
* Jesse Litsch - Major League Baseball pitcher
* Hans Lobert - infielder, coach, manager and scout in Major League Baseball
* Chuck Machemehl - former Cleveland Indians pitcher [ [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/players/40519/ SI.com - Major League Baseball - Chuck Machemehl Player Page ] ]
* Heinie Manush - Hall of Fame left-fielder in Major League Baseball [ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinie] ]
* Nick Markakis - outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles [ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032401735.html] "Markakis, who is half Greek and half German, led the Greek Olympic team..."]
* Kimmie Meissner - U.S. national champion figure skater
* Bob Meusel - former Major League Baseball shortstop
* Emil Meusel - former Major League Baseball outfielder
* Chris Nabholz - former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Drew Neitzel - All-American NCAA basketball player
* Rick Neuheisel - football coach
* Jack Nicklaus - professional golfer [ [http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,1517392,00.html] "Golden wonder"]
* Ray Nitschke - Hall of Fame football player
* Daniel Ortmeier - Major League Baseball pitcher
* Fritz Ostermueller - pitcher in Major League Baseball from 1934-1948
* Jim Otto - former Oakland Raider offensive lineman
* Heinie Peitz - former Major League Baseball catcher
* Ricky Proehl - former NFL wide receiver, two-time Super Bowl Champion
* Rick Reuschel - former Major League Baseball pitcher
* Rick Rhoden - former Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher and current golf professional
* Adolph Rupp - one of the most successful coaches in the history of American college basketball and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame member [ [http://bigbluehistory.net/bb/statistics/Coaches/Adolph_Rupp.html] "Unlike some coaches, Mr. Rupp rarely played the role of a substitute father to his players. He was not the chummy sort. He had stern and demanding qualities, inherited from his German-immigrant father. He had reverence for order and precision and demanded it from his players. To some person, he appeared to be a mean old man."]

* Babe Ruth - Major League Baseball player from 1914–1935 [ [http://german.about.com/library/bltrivia_misc1.htm] "...born George Herman Ruth in Baltimore, Maryland to parents of German background. His mother, Katie Schaumberger, was the daughter of Pius and Anna Schaumberger, both born in Germany. Babe Ruth's father, saloon owner George Ruth, had German grandparents. Although Babe Ruth's German background is certain..."]
* Craig Sager - sports journalist for TNT and TBS
* Bud Selig - commissioner of Major League Baseball
* Ray Schalk - Major League Baseball catcher
* Matt Schaub - National Football League quarterback
* Bob Scheffing - baseball player, coach, manager and front-office executive
* Bo Schembechler - former NCAA football coach at the University of Michigan
* Max Scherzer - Major League Baseball pitcher [ [http://www.azsnakepit.com/2008/4/30/470575/gameday-thread-28-4-30-vs] "to PRer free7694, “Scherzer” is German for “joker”. If Mad Max doesn’t catch on, what about The Joker?"]
* Curt Schilling - Major League Baseball pitcher
* Cory Schlesinger - National Football League fullback [ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlesinger] ]
* Gus Schmelz - Major League Baseball manager
* Francis Schmidt - college football coach inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame
* Jason Schmidt - National League baseball pitcher [ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt] ]
* Joe Schmidt - former 1950's NFL football player and coach
* Mike Schmidt - former Philadelphia Phillies third baseman and Hall of Famer
* Owen Schmitt - fullback for the Seattle Seahawks
* Brian Schneider - Major League Baseball catcher
* Red Schoendienst - former player, coach and manager in Major League Baseball
* Turk Schonert - former NFL quarterback
* Detlef Schrempf - former NBA All-Star forward
* Heinie Schuble - former Major League Baseball infielder
* John Schuerholz - general manager of the Atlanta Braves
* David Schultz - retired professional wrestler, known by his ring name as "Dr. D."
* Joe Schultz - catcher, coach and manager in Major League Baseball
* Joe Schultz, Sr - Joe "Germany" Schultz, was an outfielder and farm system director in Major League Baseball and a manager in minor league baseball
* Ryan Schultz - professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, currently fighting for the Portland Wolfpack of the International Fight League
* Skip Schumaker - outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals
* Geoff Schwartz - National Football League offensive lineman
* John Smoltz - pitcher for the Atlanta Braves
* Warren Spahn - Hall of Fame pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Mark Spitz - swimmer and Olympic gold medalist
* Rusty Staub - Major League Baseball player for 23 seasons (1963-1985)
* Roger Staubach - Heisman Trophy winner and Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys
* Eric Steinbach - player for the Cleveland Browns in the National Football League
* Terry Steinbach - former catcher in Major League Baseball
* Casey Stengel - Major League baseball player and manager from the early 1910s into the 1960s.
* Bruce Sutter - Hall of Fame right-handed relief pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Blackie Schwamb - former St. Louis Browns pitcher and contract killer
* Peter Ueberroth - executive, served as commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1984 to 1989 [ [http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/personoftheyear/archive/stories/1984.html] "His father, Victor, half German and half Viennese, with his hearty manner and curious mind, was the biggest influence in his life, says Ueberroth."]
* Bob Uecker - former Major League Baseball player and award-winning sportscaster, comedian, and actor
*Brian Urlacher - Pro Bowl linebacker for the Chicago Bears
* Chris von der Ahe - entrepreneur and owner of the St. Louis Browns of the National League, now known as the Cardinals
* Kimo von Oelhoffen - National Football League linebacker
* Lindsey Vonn - alpine skier
* Honus Wagner - former Pittsburgh Pirate Hall of Fame shortstop, manager and hitting instructor [ [http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm] "In sports there have been such memorable figures as baseballers Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Casey Stengel..."]
* Mike Wagner - safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1971 to 1980; member of the famed Steel Curtain defense; played in two Pro Bowls
* Abby Wambach - Olympic medalist and professional soccer player
* Rudolph "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone - (1913 - 1996) perhaps the best known pool player in the United States [ [http://espn.go.com/classic/s/2001/0422/1177138.html] "The Wanderones were German-Swiss"]
* Tom Weiskopf - professional golfer
* Johnny Weissmuller - swimmer, Olympic gold medalist
* Wes Welker - NFL wide receiver, punt returner, and kick returner
*Vic Wertz - former Major League Baseball first baseman and outfielder
* Hoyt Wilhelm - Hall of Fame knuckleball pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Matt Wilhelm - NFL linebacker
* Danny Wuerffel - former NFL quarterback and 1996 Heisman Trophy winner
* Michael Wuertz - Major League Baseball pitcher
* Jim Zorn - Seattle Seahawks quarterback
* Bill Zuber - Major League Baseball pitcher from 1936 to 1947

ee also

* German-Americans in the Civil War
* List of Germans
* German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA
* German Texans
* List of German Texans

References