Immigrants from Germany

About this module: This is one of six modules created for DMRS-El Paso's immigration history project. The modules focus on the people and agencies that helped (or tried to help) immigrants to the United States.

Immigrants from Germany have been in America since 1608, when they were part of the first English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. Among the German settlers were five glassblowers, three carpenters, and a doctor/botanist, Johannes Fleischer.1

William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, traveled to Germany in the 1670s to spread Quaker beliefs and, later, to recruit immigrants. The first permanent German settlement in what became the United States was Germantown, near Philadelphia, in 1683.2 

Between 65,000 and 100,000 German-speakers emigrated to the United States during the colonial era.3 Pennsylvania was the favored destination, but the largest flow of German immigration occurred between 1820 and World War I, when nearly six million Germans immigrated to the United States.

In 1848, Germans and other Europeans rebelled against the political and social systems that oppressed them. Revolutions in the German states failed and many German refugees (known as Forty-Eighters) fled to America. These immigrants included professionals, journalists, and politicians. Germans became the largest immigrant group to the United States.4

Germans settled in nearly every state, and a “German Belt” stretches across America from Pennsylvania to Oregon. Many of the Germans who settled these areas were farmers who developed innovative techniques, such as crop rotation and soil conservation. Other Germans settled in metropolitan areas, pursuing education, establishing industrial enterprises, and entering the ranks of the middle and upper classes.5

Today, over 50 million Americans have full or partial German ancestry, making German-Americans the largest white ethnic group in the United States.6

Motives for immigration

The “push” to emigrate came from war, poverty, famine, disease, religious intolerance and persecution, and military conscription.

War

Germany of today was not always a single country. About 40 different states in the old Holy Roman Empire were considered German; some were Catholic, others were Protestant. The Protestant and Catholic states in the Holy Roman Empire fought each other in the Thirty Years' War 1618–1648), which resulted in the deaths of over 8 million people, including 20% of the German population, making it one of the most destructive wars in history.7

In 1815, a German Confederation of 39 states was created, but it wasn’t until 1871 that the German states were united into the German Empire.8

Poverty, famine, and disease

The years following the creation of the 1815 German Confederation were full of natural disasters that led to widespread suffering in the German states. The year 1816 is known as the “Year Without a Summer” (also called the “Poverty Year”) because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4°–0.7°C (0.72°–1.26°F). Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest on record, resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere. The cold (and heavy rain and snowfall) was caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia).

In Europe, crops had been poor for several years; the final blow came in 1815 with the eruption of Tambora. The poorest people suffered terribly during this time. In Germany, the crisis was severe. Food prices rose sharply throughout Europe. With the cause of the problems unknown, hungry people demonstrated in front of grain markets and bakeries. Later, riots, arson, and looting took place in many European cities. On some occasions, rioters carried flags reading "Bread or Blood". Though riots were common during times of hunger, the food riots of 1816 and 1817 were the highest levels of violence since the French Revolution. It was the worst famine of 19th-century mainland Europe.9

A cholera pandemic started in India in 1816 and eventually spread to Europe. A second cholera pandemic began in 1829 and spread from Russia to Germany and beyond. Each killed 100,000 people or more. Crowded cities in Europe made the spread of these diseases easier.

Many German immigrants were motivated to leave Europe because they were unable to farm enough land to support their families. In spite of the toll taken by war and disease, Europe experienced a population boom during the 1700s. At the same time, people were leaving farms to live and work in cities. Feeding larger families and needing to supply food to city-dwellers made it difficult for farmers to raise enough food. European farms were very small—12 acres would be a typical size—at a time when wealthy landowners were consolidating and enclosing smaller fields to create larger farms, so there were fewer opportunities for family farm ownership in central Europe.10

Religious intolerance and persecution

Persecution of some religious groups in German states continued even after the religious wars of the 1600s. After the war, the Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed churches were the only recognized state churches. Smaller religious groups, such as Moravians, Jews, Mennonites, and Huguenots, were still persecuted by the Protestant and Catholic churches.11 

For example, the Moravian denomination was made up of exiles who fled to Saxony in 1722 from Moravia {today part of the Czech Republic} to escape religious persecution. Hoping to find land for their growing congregation and to spread the faith, the Moravian settlers purchased 500 acres to establish a mission and settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1741. Other Moravian settlements were established in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.12

After hundreds of years of persecution and discrimination, Jews in one small part of the Austrian Habsburg Empire were given some freedom in 1782 by the Edict of Tolerance. For the most part, though, Jews did not enjoy full civil rights until the 1871 creation of the German Empire. 

In southern and west­ern Germany—Bavaria, Baden, Wurttemberg, Hesse, and the Palatinate—Jews needed special letters of “protection” from their governments to enter the trades and professions. A Jewish youth who sought to marry had to buy a matrikel—an official certificate costing as much as 1,000 gulden. To get the certificate, he had to prove that he was engaged in a “respectable” trade or profession, at a time when many young Jews were “unrespectable” peddlers or cattle dealers. Desperate to fulfill the commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” many Jewish bachelors decided to try their fortunes abroad.13

Military conscription

The Napoleonic wars were fought by enormous armies of hundreds of thousands of men. After Prussia was beaten by the French at the Battle of Jena (1806/07), the Prussians decided the only way to defend against future attacks was for them to have a much larger army. The result was universal conscription—a military draft (Wehrpflicht) that made every male Prussian liable for military service until he turned 50 years old. All 20-23 year-old men had to be on active duty for 3 years in times of peace.14

Army service was long, strenuous, and dangerous, and the desire to avoid military conscription was another reason to emigrate from Germany.

The “pull” to emigrate

The main attractions for German immigrants were better economic conditions, especially the opportunity to own land, and religious freedom.15 

The “Hessians”

The opportunity to own land was extremely attractive. Some 25,000 mercenary troops from German states fought for the British during the American Revolution. Most came from Hesse-Cassel and Brunswick, Germany, but they are usually called “Hessians.” 

As many as 12,500 of the Hessian soldiers hired by Britain to fight in the Revolutionary War never went back to Germany. Some of these may have died or moved to Canada, but many remained in America after the end of the war. Some were induced to desert by the Americans promising them land grants. Some went over to the American side after they were captured, and some were indentured to Americans as laborers. These “Hessians” and their families settled in many of the German communities in America.16

Chance to own land

The arrivals before 1850 were mostly farmers who sought out the most productive land, where their intensive farming techniques would pay off. After 1840, many came to cities, where “Germania”—German-speaking districts—soon emerged. German Americans established the first kindergartens in the United States, introduced the Christmas tree tradition, and introduced popular foods such as hot dogs and hamburgers to America. One major contribution of the Germans to America was apple pie. German engineers, scientists, craftsmen, and other experts helped make the United States a world leader in technology.

Large parts of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia attracted Germans. Most were Lutheran or German Reformed; many belonged to small religious sects such as Moravians and Mennonites. Catholics did not arrive in larger numbers until after the War of 1812.17

Freedom of religion

The German immigrants brought their religious organizations with them to America, where they enjoyed the freedom to worship where, when, and how they pleased. 

While they were discriminated against when America fought Germany in World War I and World War II, they are considered fully integrated into American culture and society.

Help for immigrants

German immigrants received help from religious organizations and government authorities. Major sources of assistance for immigrants were the German communities in America, which founded German Societies, and governments, like that of England’s Queen Anne.

The German Society of Pennsylania

Between the 1680s and the American Revolution, most of an estimated 100,000 German-speaking immigrants landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.18

The trip from Germany to Philadelphia was dangerous and expensive. They had to pay fees to cross into the Netherlands. Once they got to Rotterdam, they had to find housing and food while waiting, sometimes for months, to board a ship. They also had to pay for their sea passage and buy their own food for the voyage. Crowded, unsanitary conditions on board the ship led to outbreaks of disease. By the time they arrived in Philadelphia, the immigrants were in terrible shape and many were ill and nearly broke. To cover the cost of their voyages, many of them became indentured—contracting to work for a specific number of years without pay.

Sixty-five prominent German colonists, in 1764, established the German Society of Pennsylvania (GSP) “for the relief of distressed Germans.”19

The GSP began by helping the indentured German immigrants. lobbying for laws to protect them from exploitative contracts or abusive employers. It also provided interpreters, financial assistance, and legal aid. The success of the GSP led to the creation of similar societies in Baltimore and New York.

An increase in German immigration in the 1840s led to the creation of a GSP relief agency (the Agentur), which offered medical care, shelter, transportation, cash, and employment referrals. The GSP started a Women’s Auxiliary in 1900, and the Agentur shifted to helping single men find employment, while the Auxiliary helped entire families. 

The GSP also helped immigrants with education. Starting in the 1780s, the GSP offered financial assistance to young German men attending the University of Pennsylvania. In 1817, the GSP opened a Volksbibliothek, a lending library. In the 1860s, the GSP launched a lecture series and started an Abendschule (night school) offering English language instruction for German speakers. As the 19th century progressed, the Society became more active in the promotion of German culture in Philadelphia.20

The German Society of Pennsylvania continues to this day.

The German Society of the City of New York 

The German Society of the City of New York (GSCNY) was founded in 1784 by 13 German men. It was modeled after the Philadelphia Society and membership increased rapidly.21 

As the GSP did in Philadelphia, the GSCNY tried to help indentured immigrants get out of debt. In 1787, Major-General Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben (1730–1794), a Prussian officer who was Washington’s Chief of Staff during the Revolution, became president of the GSCNY. Von Steuben donated three plantations of 100 acres each to the GSCNY for the placement of poor German immigrants to help them pay off their passages. The GSCNY also paid off the indentures of some German immigrants, freeing them to work elsewhere, and found jobs for them in farms on the Hudson River.

Originally, the GSCNY work was done by individual members, who would meet German immigrants at the ships, offering them assistance and protection from criminals who tried to steal their baggage and sell them counterfeit railroad and boat tickets. A GSCNY Information Office published booklets on immigration to be distributed in Germany. The GSCNY Work Office helped immigrants find employment. The GSCNY Welfare Committee assisted with housing and legal problems. A medical team provided free doctor visits and medication.22

Later, the GSCNY started a bank, a hospital, and a legal aid society. The GSCNY's business department was created to provide currency exchange, fund transfers, passenger ticket sales and savings accounts for immigrants.23

 The Government of England’s Queen Anne

The German Middle Rhine region of the Holy Roman Empire, which abuts the French border and is generally referred to as the Palatinate. From the end of the 1600s into the 1700s, the wealthy region was repeatedly invaded by French troops during the religious wars. They imposed continuous military requisitions, causing widespread devastation and famine.

The winter of 1708 was extremely cold, resulting in food shortages and miserable living conditions. Other factors impelled the “Poor Palatines” as they were called, to leave: "(1) war devastation, (2) heavy taxation, (3) an extraordinarily severe winter, (4) religious quarrels, but not persecutions, (5) land hunger on the part of the elderly and desire for adventure on the part of the young, (6) liberal advertising by colonial proprietors, and finally (7) the benevolent and active cooperation of the British government."24 

Seeking a better life, some 13,000 Germans (Protestant and Catholic farmers) emigrated from the Palatinate to England as refugees between May and November 1709.25

The “Poor Palatines” were unlike previous migrant groups—skilled, middle-class, religious exiles such as the Huguenots or the Dutch in the 16th century—but rather were unskilled rural laborers, neither sufficiently educated nor healthy enough for most types of employment.26

Britain’s Queen Anne was sympathetic, but her Government couldn’t decide what to do with them, which set off one of the first political debates over the merits of immigration. 

More than 3,500 Palatines were sent back because they were Catholics or because they asked to be returned. The others waited in England, camped out in fields near London, living on charity and a small allowance from the English government. “The conditions among the Palatines were certainly very bad. Bread was never known to have been so dear  and the government allowance was insufficient to sustain them properly. They were obliged to beg on the streets of London and this begging was done principally by the married women.”27

“In the crowded quarters and with meager sustenance, the Palatines had fallen prey to fevers and plagues. Death wrought havoc in their ranks in spite of their hardiness. It is not known how many died in their encampment at Blackheath and elsewhere in London, but the number must have been nearly a thousand.”28

Eventually, the English tried to settle the Palatines in England, Ireland and the North American colonies of Carolina and New York.29

At this time, the English Royal Navy was suffering from a lack of tar, pitch, and other resinous products of the pine tree. The major manufacturer was a Swedish monopoly which “controlled the supply of naval stores, that is to say, tar and pitch. (“Naval stores” is a general term includes masts, ship timber, tar, pitch, rosin and hemp, and even some manufactured iron)” Tar and pitch were used a lot on sailing ships to waterproof ropes and wooden surfaces, including the ship’s hull.30

Because of the Swedish monopoly, prices were very high and availability uncertain. Reports from America suggested that the pine trees there could become a reliable source for England gave birth to the idea of sending the Palatinates to settle there with the express purpose of providing naval stores. The British Crown believed the Germans could be “useful to this kingdom, particularly in the production of naval stores, and as a frontier against the French and their Indians.”31

The Palatines’ trip to America was long and difficult because of the poor quality of food and water aboard the ships and the spread of the infectious disease typhus. Many immigrants, particularly children, died before the Palatines reached America in June, 1710.32

“In the summer of 1710, a colony numbering 2,227 arrived in New York and were [later] located in five villages on either side of the Hudson River”.33 This was the largest single immigration to America in the colonial period. 

In the end, though, the New York Palatine settlement was considered a failure. It never produced enough tar or hemp to make it worthwhile. One author, Rev. Sanford Hoadley Cobb, suggested that the failure occurred because the pinetrees of the Hudson could not produce tar and pitch in profitable quantities. Other experts agree with Cobb. The area was also not a good place to raise the hemp needed to make rope.34

The settlement failed because of the lack of continued financial support by the English government, because of an unwilling labor supply under frontier conditions, and perhaps, because of poor management and incapable instruction in the methods of manufacturing naval stores. 

Britain spent over £100,000 upon the Palatines in various ways and got very little in return. In 1712, the English cut off aid to the Palatines, many of whom then moved west to areas where they could by farm land. 

In 1723 Germans became the first Europeans allowed to buy land in the Mohawk Valley. By 1750, the Germans occupied a strip some 12 miles (19 km) long along both sides of the Mohawk River. The soil was excellent; some 500 houses were built, mostly of stone, and the region prospered in spite of raids by Native Americans. The German settlements in this region were known as the "German Flats”.35

They kept to themselves, married their own, spoke German, attended Lutheran churches, and retained their own customs and foods. They emphasized farm ownership. Some mastered English to become conversant with local legal and business opportunities. They tolerated slavery (although few were rich enough to own a slave).36

The British colonial naval stores industry developed without the Palatines, mostly in the Carolinas. By 1715, they were making as much tar as the Swedish monopoly.

You may not know about German immigration - Adelsverein German colony in Texas

In the late 1830s stories about the free, wide-open spaces in Texas spread to Germany. The publicity attracted a group of German noblemen who envisioned a project to colonize German peasants in Texas. The nobles hoped the project would bring them wealth, power, and prestige. It could also, they thought, alleviate overpopulation in rural Germany.37 

The Mainzer Adelsverein (Nobility Society of Mainz), was organized in 1842, as an attempt to establish a new Germany within the borders of Texas.38 

At this time the Republic of Texas was an independent country and the German aristocrats believed it would welcome a proposal from polished and sophisticated noblemen. They also felt that, while other European countries, like Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and Holland, had overseas colonies, Germany did not. The Adelsverein leadership hoped to remedy that lack.

One author says, “the society’s goal was to provide economic relief for prospective, proletarian emigrants. Once settled, the expectation was that these emigrants would create overseas markets for German manufacture and subsequent profits for its founding members-cum-shareholders; some of them even hoped the colony would develop a new German social order. But, in the words of a novelist, between dreaming and doing laws intervene and practical difficulties. Indeed, in order to be viable, this mixture of philanthropy, idealism, and commerce required a massive scale of colonization.”39

In May 1842, the Adelsverein sent Counts Joseph of Boos-Waldeck and Victor August of Leiningen-Westerburg-Alt-Leiningen to Texas to explore the country firsthand and to purchase land for the settlement of immigrants. 

In Texas, the two Counts discussed a land grant with President Sam Houston, who could grant land to contractors for colonies. The Counts ultimately turned down Houston's offer of a grant when they found our it would be in frontier territory inhabited by hostile Native Americans. 

In January 1843, Count Boos-Waldeck bought 4,428 acres in what is now Fayette County, Texas as a base for a colony. He named it Nassau Farm, in honor of Duke Adolf of Nassau, the patron of the society. Twenty-five slaves were bought to work the property. (When Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels inspected the plantation in 1844, he recommended the Adelsverein divest itself of the property, rather than be associated with slavery. The Adelsverein sold the Nassau plantation in 1848.)

In September, 1843 land speculators Alexander Bourgeois d’Orvanne and Armand Ducos had a colonization contract for a tract of land west of San Antonio. Bourgeois d’Orvanne offered to sell his contract to the Adelsverein. What the Adelsverein did not know when they purchased the colonization rights from Bourgeois d’Orvanne was that his contract had already expired. 

Nevertheless, the Adelsverein sent Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Ludwig Georg Alfred Alexander of Solms-Braunfels (as general commissioner) and Bourgeois d’Orvanne (as colonial director) to Texas to seek renewal of the grant and to prepare for the arrival of colonists. 

Prince Solms-Braunfels learned that Bourgeois d’Orvanne could not renew his contract and the Adelsverein had acquired from him neither land nor colonization rights in Texas.40

That they had been swindled by Bourgeois d’Orvanne did not deter the Adelsverein. On June 26, 1844, they purchased colonization rights from another speculator, Henry Francis Fisher, who with Burchard Miller held a colonization contract for land between the Llano and Colorado rivers. 

The Adelsverein hired ships and sent the first group of immigrants to Texas in December, 1844. They hadn’t made any preparations for settling the Fisher-Miller land grant, so the immigrants were settled on land that Prince Solms-Braunfels purchased and named New Braunfels (after his estate in Germany). 

In May, 1845, John O. Meusebach, the new general commissioner of the Adelsverein in Texas, began making preparations for the arrival of 4,000 new immigrants. Fredericksburg, the society's second colony, was established by in 1846 near the Pedernales River, where the year before he had bought over 11,000 acres for the Adelsverein. Between October 1845 and April 1846, the Adelsverein brought 5,257 German emigrants to Texas.41 

The German settlers who immigrated to Texas because of the Adelsverein were solid middle-class peasants42—land-owning families, artisans, and some university-educated professional people and intellectuals. The Germans believed their futures were cramped by the social and economic system at home. The Adelsverein immigrants were not poverty-stricken and oppressed. Indeed, they were able to afford the substantial cash investment required in overseas migration.

But the Adelsverein organization was over-extended and under-capitalized. The colonists in Texas could not produce enough in the first few years to cover the costs of the settlement. By the end of 1847 the Adelsverein was facing bankruptcy, which finally came in 1853.43 

Historians have mixed opinions about the Adelsverein's motives and achievements. As an effort to establish a new Germany in Texas, the venture was a fiasco. The leaders of the Adelsverein were misled by propaganda materials that depicted, in glowing terms, the great personal liberty and the plentiful and productive land to be found in Texas. The Adelsverein failed not because of greed or the mean-spirited parsimony of its members, but their lack of business sense, the sneaky intrigues of land speculators and some members of the Adelsverein, the naïveté of the nobles and aristocrats involved, and a lack of trust, even in their own officers in Texas.44

You may not know about German immigration - Hitler's Nephew immigrated to the US

William Patrick “Willy” Stuart-Houston (1911–1987) was an unusual German immigrant to the US. 

Willy was the son of Alois Hitler, Jr. and his wife, Bridget Dowling (1891–1969). Alois was the half brother of Nazi Germany’s leader Adolph Hitler. 

Alois lived in Ireland and England, where Willy was born. Alois Hitler abandoned his Irish-born wife Bridget and son William in England and went on a gambling tour. 

In 1933, Willy went to Germany and got a job at a bank through his uncle Adolph and asked for more favors. Willy pushed his uncle too far, and had to flee for England in 1938. Uncle Adolph referred to William as his “loathsome nephew.”45 

In 1939, William and his mother were invited to the United States to go on a lecture tour. They were stuck in the US when World War II broke out and could not leave the country. In 1944, William was cleared to join the US Navy after making a special request to President Roosevelt. He served in the US Navy and the Naval Medical Corps before being honorably discharged in 1947. He was wounded and earned a Purple Heart.46

After the war, William wanted to disassociate himself from his infamous uncle Adolph, so he changed his last name first to Hiller, then to Stuart-Houston. 

Willy married a German woman and moved to Patchogue on Long Island, New York, where they had four sons. William ran a business analyzing blood samples for hospitals. 

William, his wife Phyllis, and his mother Bridget are buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Coram, New York. His surviving sons live on Long Island, NY.

Special Thanks

Kathleen Neils Conzen; Thomas E. Donnelley Professor Emerita—American History: University of Chicago

Walter D. Kamphoefner; Professor and Director of Graduate Studies: Texas A&M University

Lori B. Bessler; Microforms Reference Librarian: University of Wisconsin–Madison

Steven B. Zwickel, 2020

 1 German Americana “First Germans at Jamestown” https://www.mrshea.com/germusa/jamestwn.htm and in Jabs, Albert E.,"400 Years of Germans In Jamestown"(PDF),(June–July 2008) German-American Journal, 56 (3): 1, 1

 2 Berquist, James M. “Germans and German Americans, to 1870”, in Immigrants in American History. Vol. 1: Arrival, Adaptation, and Integration Barkan, Elliott Robert, editor. (2013, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, CA) ISBN-13: 978-1598842197

3  “Why Did German Immigrants Come to America?” https://www.reference.com/history/did-german-immigrants-come-america-d09a28f0f9b42cf4

4 Wittke, Carl. Refugees of Revolution (1952, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia). <https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-early-republic/politics-society-early-19th-c/a/irish-and-german-immigration>

5 Tolzmann, Don Heinrich. The German-American Experience (2000, New York: Prometheus Books).

6  US Census Bureau: 2000, 139.

7  wikipedia.org entry: “Thirty Years’ War” and Wilson, Peter H. Europe's Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War (London: Penguin, 2010), 787; and Clodfelter, Micheal. Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015.  (2017, McFarland). p. 40. ISBN 978-0786474707.

8  “German Unification” in https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/german-unification/

9  Fagan, Brian The Little Ice Age. How Climate Made History 1300-1850; (2001, Basic Books); ISBN: 978-0465022724

10 Handlin, Oscar The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People (1951, 2nd enlarged ed. 1973; Little, Brown & Co.) p.17.

11 Germany Church History <https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Germany_Church_History>

12 Moravian History <http://www.palmyramoravian.org/what-is-moravian.html>

13 German-Jewish Immigrants <https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/german-jewish-immigrants>

14 Klöffler, Martin. Materialien zu den Aushebungen der preussischen Landwehr 1813-15 in <https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Germany_Military_Records#:~:text=Germany%20had%20a%20large%20army,permission%20before%20he%20could%20emigrate>

15 Nesbit, Robert C. Wisconsin: A History (2004, University of Wisconsin Press) pp.155–57. ISBN 9780299108045

16 Hansen, Marcus L. The Atlantic Migration: 1670–1860 (1940, Harvard Univ. Press/2001, Simon Publications) p.54.

17 Conzen, Kathleen "Germans", in Stephan Thernstrom (ed.), Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, (1980, Belknap Press), p. 407

18 Berquist, James M. “Germans and German Americans, to 1870”, in Immigrants in American History. Vol. 1

19 The German Society of Pennsylvania: “OUR HISTORY"<https://www.germansociety.org/our-history/>

20 The German Society of Pennsylvania: “OUR HISTORY"

21 German Society of the City of New York (Deutsche Gesellschaft) https://americanhistory.si.edu/steinwaydiary/annotations/?id=852

22 Wust, Klaus. Guardian on the Hudson: The German Society of the City of New York 1784-1984. (1984, The German Society of the City of New York, New York).

23 German Society of the City of New York (Deutsche Gesellschaft) 

24 Knittle, Walter Allen. Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, (1937, Philadelphia: Dorrance & Co.)

25 Knittle, Walter Allen. Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration p.69

26 wikipedia.org entry “German Palatines”

27 Knittle, Walter Allen. Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration,  p.70

28 Knittle, Walter Allen. Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, p. 80

29 Otterness, Philip. Becoming German: The 1709 Palatine Migration to New York. (2004, Cornell University Press; Ithaca, NY). pp. 23–24. ISBN 9780801473449. cited in Wikipedia.org

30 British sailors also used tar to hold back their long hair, which led to them being called “tars”

31 Knittle, Walter Allen. Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, p. 80

32 Knittle, Walter Allen. Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, {The Rev. Joshua Kocherthal led a smaller group in 1709, with about 50 people who settled in Newburgh, New York, on the banks of the Hudson River.}

33 wikipedia.org entry “German Palatines”

34 Cobb, Sanford Hoadley. The Story of the Palatines, 1897.

35 Knittle, Walter Allen (1937), Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration

36 Otterness, Philip. Becoming German p. 133

37 Jordan, Terry G. "Germans". Handbook of Texas Online. [Texas State Historical Association]<https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/germans>

38 Jordan, Terry G. "Germans". Handbook of Texas Online.

39 de Klerk, Nico. “A noble failure” in Mapping Colin Ross <http://colinrossproject.net/detail/exhibit/a-noble-failure>

40 Jordan, Terry G. "Germans". Handbook of Texas Online.

41 Jordan, Terry G. "Germans". Handbook of Texas Online.

42  “Peasants” here means small farmers. The word is sometimes used nowadays to describe people who lack sophistication or education.

43 Jordan, Terry G. "Germans". Handbook of Texas Online.

44 Jordan, Terry G. "Germans". Handbook of Texas Online.

45 wikipedia.org entry for “Hitler Family”

46 Brown, Jonathan & Oliver Duff. "The black sheep of the family? The rise and fall of Hitler's scouse nephew" in The Independent, 17 August 2006