The German people in our modern media have been alternately portrayed as silly, clumsy, beer-bellied fools or mad scientists and evil warlords. They vie with Arabs for first place as the Saturday cartoon version of the arch enemy of mankind.. their “guttural” accent alone enough to trigger fear and loathing. This conditioning started long before the National Socialists, however. It began almost a century ago and only took a few months to engineer. It is difficult to believe that there was actually a time when the German popular image was not only otherwise, but completely the opposite. It was very good and very old, going back, as we have seen, to the American Revolution.

In the United States, Germans were the majority of immigrants for decades and they formed a huge part of the population. A German presence went back to the earliest days of the nation when most early German immigrants lived in the rural countryside. Back in 1745, there were an estimated 45,000 Germans living in Pennsylvania alone, and most were farmers. Only about two fifths lived in cities larger than 25,000 people, and even as late as 1870, German-born farmers made up one third of the agricultural industry in rural America. The German-American element was strong enough that German Language was allowed as an official alternative in the schools of many states, some requiring it upon parental demand as early as 1839. Some public and parochial schools taught exclusively in German throughout many decades, and many larger cities, such as Baltimore, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Cleveland operated bilingual schools.

John Quincy Adams was also one of the most famous translators of Friedrich Schiller. Adams’ book, ‘44 Letters About Germany’ created great interest in German classic literature. Schiller’s plays were soon published in America, in fact, “The Robbers” was the first drama printed in Philadelphia and it was performed as a play in 1796 in New York. Friedrich Schiller’s work inspired Frederick Douglass, and in his paper North Star, Douglass called Schiller “The Poet of Freedom.”

In 1859, the celebrations in America for Schiller’s 100th birthday had been even bigger than the celebrations in Germany, running for days across the whole nation and causing the Chicago Tribune on November 9, 1859 to claim: “In another age, Schiller will stand forth in the foremost rank of the master spirits of this century, and be admitted to a place among the chosen of all centuries.”

Many American literary icons either studied or lived in Germany. Washington Irving travelled widely in Germany studying German language and literature, and he used German folktales as a basis for many of his own stories, best-known of which is ‘Rip Van Winkle,’ based on a German folktale. Whitman, Emerson and many other thinkers of the American Renaissance appreciated German literature and were greatly influenced by it. Louisa May Alcott, although of New England parentage, was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania and educated by a father that was well-versed in German literature. She loved all things German, even to the point of making some of her romantic heroes dreamy-eyed Germans.

Edgar Allen Poe was a Germanophile as was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who visited Germany and became enchanted by the German Romanticist movement, a literary fusion of philosophy, poetry, and politics aimed at exploring human emotion. He settled down for a time in the university town of Göttingen, Germany for a relatively disciplined study in preparation for his Bowdoin professorship. Beautiful Berlin was a popular destination for American tourists.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, spoke fluent German and translated many German literary works into English for the American public. James Russell Lowell and Bret Harte stayed for a time in Germany as did Thomas Wolfe, also regarded as a fierce Germanophile.James Fenimore Cooper’s adventures through the German countryside prompted the novels ‘The Bravo,’ ‘The Heidenmauer’ and ‘The Headsman.’ He was wildly popular in Germany. Susan Fenimore Cooper, the author’s daughter (and a nature writer), wrote of how her father decided to write “The Deerslayer” in her introduction of the book:

By 1860, 200 German-language magazines and newspapers were published in the USA, and this grew to many thousands by the end of the nineteenth century. There were major German language book publishers in nearly every major city, each producing thousands of German books every year.The bulk of “Germans” who came to America arrived at a time when there was not yet a nation of “Germany” since Germany was not yet unified in the early years of major German emigration. Instead, they came as Saxons, Bavarians, Prussians, Swabians, Hessians, etc. and thought of themselves as such. They wore distinctive dress, spoke in dialects other Germans did not always understand and even tended to marry within their respective groups.

Their one common bond was the written German language. Since they were not an entirely exclusive group, they did not have an “us versus them” mentality and tended to assimilate more rapidly than other ethnic groups. While they enjoyed German language newspapers, ate German food and held on to some customs near and dear to them such as a festive Christmas, singing groups and beergartens, they still wanted to mingle and mix into their new world, primarily to make money and prosper. It was easier for Germans to assimilate than other distinct ethnic groups, in part because they were not physically “different” than the other European settlers already in place except for their language and most learned English rather quickly.

Most Germans who came in the mid-19th century were fleeing from the failed revolutions. They were not especially happy with the land of their birth. Many came to America to escape tyranny, oppression and control by petty little dukes and pompous princes. They came because archaic laws in the old homeland would have prevented them from marrying the one they loved, owning their own farm or business, hunting and fishing where and when they wanted and even giving their children the names of their choice. Many came to escape political turmoil and left their homeland reluctantly. They would have stayed if only there had been more money, more jobs, more liberty or more opportunity. Even though most of these immigrants still had living relatives back in the old country and their ties were not entirely severed, they loved their new land and were willing to fight for American ideals, which were also their ideals.

A full quarter of the fighting force in the American Civil War were German American. Idealistic and eager to show loyalty to their new homeland, some had barely disembarked from their immigrant ships when they answered the call to duty. Sixty seven of them received the Medal of Honor.

On September 14, 1869 thousands of people gathered across the United States in parades, speeches and ceremonies to mark the centennial of Alexander Humboldt’s birth and the New York Times devoted its entire front page coverage to the momentous events while the city’s public buildings were all hung with portraits and flags and the ships in New York harbor were wrapped in bunting. In Central Park, 25,000 people gathered to hear speeches while bands played and a bronze bust of Humboldt was dedicated, ten years after a bust of Schiller was erected as the oldest portrait sculpture in Central Park and 15 years before one of Beethoven shot up. In Jersey City, across the Hudson, the celebration was equally as fantastic with houses along the parade route decorated for a march composed of prominent citizens with a platoon of police and wagons covered with flags and filled with young women in white dresses. A bust of Humboldt was also unveiled there as well as a colossal portrait of Humboldt.

In 1871, there was a huge parade on New York’s Broadway celebrating Bismarck’s victory, led by none other than Civil War hero Franz Sigel. The formation of the German Empire was jubilantly welcomed in the United States and soon internationally. It was efficient, prosperous and well-respected. For decades, scholars, scientists and artists flocked to Germany for education, romance and adventure. They came home praising and spreading German virtues, education and culture. There were German American clubs, sports associations, churches, parades, beer gardens and newspapers all over America where Germans had substantial communities. There were towns named Berlin, streets called Goethe and schools named Schiller just about everywhere.

Sizable, respectable German colonies existed in not only in Buffalo, but in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and in other cities as well: “Kleindeutschland” in New York, Chicago’s North Side, Cincinnati’s “Over the Rhine,” “Little Saxony” in New Orleans and others. There were many entirely German farm hamlets, villages and small towns in almost every area of the United States. It was not uncommon in schools in some of those communities to sport a portrait of Bismarck on their walls next to one of George Washington. Between 1820 and 1920, over 5,500,000 people had emigrated from Germany.

However diverse, Germans were none the less proud of their mutual heritage and culture, and especially elated with Bismarck’s success in the unification of Germany in 1871, something which many recent immigrants or their parents had dreamed of and fought for before coming to America. Germany’s respected new status in the world reflected on each and every American of German descent. They shared the excitement and enthusiasm for a new democratic Germany with as much joy as their kinfolk “back home” did. For the first time, Bavarians, Saxons, Swabians and Prussians in German lands as well as America were all proudly calling themselves Germans.

An 1883 Saengerfest Parade in Buffalo, New York, below, drew thousands of participants from all over the country, and Schiller was still beloved on May 8, 1905 when 25 brass bands and 6,000 marchers joined by dignitaries and politicians paraded down New York’s Fifth Avenue celebrating the 100th anniversary of his death. Vendors served pretzels, sauerkraut and beer to celebrants dressed in ethnic German clothing. Turner gymnasts cart wheeled down the avenue while thousands of people sang hearty old marches and songs, including the Star Spangled Banner..in German. As America’s largest ethnic group, German pastimes had become America’s pastimes, their food America’s food, their beer America’s beer and their Christmas traditions America’s traditions.