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Talk:List of German Americans

Latest comment: 11 months ago by Schazjmd in topic Commencing clean-up
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In the List? German immigrant descendant?

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Latest comment: 9 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

please add the list, and answer me

British people

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See also the list at Talk:List of Jews.

French people

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others

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--Sheynhertzגעשׁ״ך 05:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

Mercedez Ruehl has part german ancestry. Raul Boesel is Brazilian but must have some german ancestry as well, based on a historic german immigrant wave to Brazil (hence the abundance of german or german-sounding last names there, sometimes even with the original Umlaut in place -see e.g. Giselle Bündchen- which in his case would make his original family name "Bösel"). Race drivers... what about the Bettenhausen and Unser dynasties? Obvious german names. 91.33.235.197 19:36, 1 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

ARCHIVES

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Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Should the jews be removed from this list?

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Latest comment: 11 years ago9 comments9 people in discussion

I was wondering if the jews should be removed from this list since they already have there own list of jewish-americans. There are some other reasons that jews should be removed from the german-american list, like jews are not german they are jews. If this list was filled up with only jewish people who happened to have lived in germany before they came to america no one would think that this is a list of german-americans they would think of it as a list of jewish americans who lived in germany for a time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.186.76.248 (talk) 16:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Being Jewish does in my opinion mean to belong to a religious group not a nationality. Eventhough due to history jews are often seen as one group of people, much closer than other religions. Many Jewish people were born in Germany, felt German and fought for Germany during WW1. That they later emigrated because of eg nazi suppression, doesn't make them less German. I don't see why they should be removed from this list. No one would remove catholic persons from this list either and I don't see the harm done when someone is listed in both lists, german-americans and jewish americans . 213.67.102.196 (talk) 00:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I suppose it is not surprising the Nazi beliefs still live on, such as the belief that Jews born and raised in Germany are somehow not German because only non-Jews can be German. This is complete nonsense, of course. Hmains (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I think it's the other way round: Instead of only non-Jews can be german the ideology opined mostly is no Jew would claim himself to be German (after the Third Reich tried to annihilate Jewry). Espeacially in Germany itself there is a common fear of offending any Jew by callimg him German. --78.48.103.92 (talk) 17:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

ashkenazim are german —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.231.114 (talk) 10:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

A few points: 1. "German" can describe both an ethnic ancestry and a citizenship. If you look at a map of the world showing political divisions, and a map of the world showing ethnic divisions, you'll find plenty of differences. There are Nigerian citizens but there is no such thing as an ethnic Nigerian. There are ethnic Yoruba but there is no such thing as a Yoruba citizen - easy enough. Areas of overlap, nation-states like Germany or Japan, blur the lines for many people, but they really shouldn't. One can have German ancestry without being a German citizen (many Austrians, Swiss, and Americans, for example). One can also be a German citizen without being an ethnic German (for example, an individual born in Berlin to Swedish immigrants, and his or her Swedish-born parents themselves). The confusion comes from assuming that a German citizen of Swedish ancestry is less of a German citizen than a German citizen of German ancestry.

2. "Jewish" describes both a category of religious denominations and a category of ethnicities. Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism are religions. Meanwhile, Ashkenazim and Sephardim are ethnicities. One can be Jewish by religion without being Jewish by ethnicity, and someone else can be Jewish by ethnicity without following Jewish religion.

3. Now, for the question at hand - Is an American citizen whose Jewish ancestors came from Germany a "German American"? Well, obviously "German American" isn't describing citizenship since the person in question is a citizen of the United States, not Germany. As an ethnic term, excluding a American of 100% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry from the category of German Americans isn't objectively offensive in its intention - After all, many German Americans trace their ancestry to a time before Germany existed as a unified country. If one were to exclude Steven Speilberg from a list of "German Americans," that doesn't assume his ancestors were less German citizens than Paris Hilton's German ancestors, since Paris Hilton's German ancestors were never German citizens.

4. Now, here's where things really get complex. The above argument is based on an assumption that ethnic German gentiles never married into the Ashkenazi Jewish communities over the course of nearly 2000 years. This is almost assuredly false - Nearly all African Americans have some European ancestry, and they've coexisted with European Americans for a significantly shorter period of history. In this sense, Albert Einstein is definitely a German American from an ethnic perspective, in the sense that at least a few of his ancestors were ethnic Germans who married some of his ethnic Ashkenazi ancestors and passed their ancestry on to him generations later. --74.103.150.125 (talk) 03:54, 13 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

5. Jewish people born and raised in Germany are German nationaly, but they are not German ethnicaly. Jews are a semitic people. The only people Ashkenazi Jews cluster with in Europe are Southern Italians. Ashkenazi Jews have no genetic relation to ethnic Germans and they are geneticaly distinct. There are studies that prove the European Jews have not intermixed with Europeans as much as believed as they still today have Y-DNA & Mtdna uncommon in Europe yet extremely common in the Arab world. They have remained a clear homogeneous distinct group in Europe. They are an actual ethnic group, and personally i'm getting quite sick of the notion that their affiliation is pure "religious" despite studies that prove they are unlike native Europeans. They were isolated, and most of them marry other Ashkenazi jews. So yes, German Jews can be included in the list about National Germans, but they can never be included in a list of ethnic Germans. They are there own distinct group, as distinct as the African Americans in The United States are and should not be representive of any ethnic German. Europeans know this, it seems Americans are the only ones who have trouble with "ethnicity". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C4EA:CA0:756F:B745:8929:82C0 (talk) 01:51, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Would you care to tell us your sources? --88.71.238.206 (talk) 18:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Genetic mapping of Europeans. Ashkenazi cluster nowhere near Germans. They cluster only with Sicilians/South Italians/Greeks. Which makes sense given their long history in these regions. They picked up quite a few genetic markers from them.

http://i.imgur.com/km1KP9L.png

Ashkenazi picked up some European Mtdna in their history in Europe but the majority of their Y-DNA still traces them back to the Middle East rather than Europe. The Jews in European countries are genetically distinct from the native populations in everyone of those countries. Unless they're a convert rather than an ethnic Jew who's lineage goes back to the Mid east.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C4EA:CA0:A9DB:9AD8:6F5:A492 (talk) 02:39, 9 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Proposal for a list of german-german-americans article and a list of german-jewish-americans article

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Latest comment: 9 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Can wikipedians make a list of german-german-americans article that list only people who are german and not jewish people? Adding the jews in the german-americans list makes it to long.

Also the main reason why the people come to look at these list(list of irish-americans, list of italian-americans,..etc.) is to see the people from there own ethnic group who have contributed to american intellectual society not to see a people who think that they are part of that ethnic group but are actually not. Jewish people are not german they are a middle-eastern people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.186.76.248 (talk) 17:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Neither Ashkenazim nor Sephardim nor Cochin Jews are middle-eastern... but Mizrahim are. --78.48.103.92 (talk) 17:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Actually all jewish people are middle eastern regardless of where they live or how long they have been there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.197.253 (talk) 01:35, 24 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Only a VERY small handful of Jews are of Middle-Eastern descent....119.92.93.84 (talk) 17:12, 22 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Jews?

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Latest comment: 9 years ago17 comments11 people in discussion

Jewish people have their own culture and their own communities. Please understand that whenever a real german-american comes to look at the list of german-americans on wikipedia they do not come to see a group of people who think they are german-american. Whenever a real german-american comes to this article to look at this list they want to see the people from their own ethnic group who have grown up in the real german communities and the culture of the real german-americans not the people who have grown up in the yiddish culture and jewish communities. There is no way that every real german-american could gain a high status occupation since alot of them have to work the lower class jobs that make the upper class jobs possible so putting a bunch of elitist people(jews) who really have no love for german culture or the german people(except that the jews want to leech onto gentile groups to attain the high status jobs created by those gentile populations) in this list is an incorrect categorization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.244.182.138 (talk) 20:45, 28 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

I oppose this change. German Americans are defined as "citizens of the United States of ethnic German ancestry". This quite explicitly includes Germans who fled to the US during WWII, see German Americans#World War II. Unless that very definition is changed first by consensus, this list shouldn't exlude Jews. --Amalthea 17:13, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Amalthea wholeheartedly. If they were born in Germany and became U.S. citizens, then they and their descendants are German-American. This is totally consistent with the German Americans article. You've tried this ploy before, and were voted down, so give it up.64.252.28.1 (talk) 19:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

This list should only include german americans who have ethnic german ancestors. If some group of irish people lived in germany for a short period of time practiced their own irish culture and then moved to the U.S. they would not be german americans. Sorbs and wends who are two ethnically slavic groups who have their own slavic cultures should be excluded from this list. Jews are not ethnic germans but are a middle eastern ethnic group and have always kept there jewish culture therefore jews should be excluded from this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.195.132 (talk) 20:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Ethnic group: "a group of human beings whose members identify with each other. [...] marked by the recognition [...] of common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioral or biological traits".
Can you show that this summarily does not apply to each and every person who you have removed from this list? See BTW also Talk:German American and Assimilated Jew.
This is a fuzzy topic, but quite basically we are only looking for verifiable facts. If there is a reliable source calling a person a German-American, like [1] for Erwin Panofsky whom you removed, then they belong on the list. Provide a reliable source refuting that claim and we can talk about it.
In the meantime, please refrain from removing people from the list without giving a very good reason. Prior consensus, as shown above and in the article's history, is to keep Jews in the article. --Amalthea 22:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

"a group of human beings whose members identify with each other"-Ethnic germans do not identify with jews except at a very base level(like greed). Baseness can be identified in all groups of people so it is to general a collection of characteristics. Jews do identify with other jews though on the jewish level. "of common cultural","behavioral"-Jewish people have jewish culture, ethnic germans have german culture. Just because jews have extreme lust(baseness) for high status jobs and are able to attain those high status jobs does not change their jewish ethnicity to some other ethnicity. "linguistic"- So all americans who speak english are english-americans? Anyone in who learns french automatically becomes french? "religious"- A religious group is a religious group an ethinic group is an ethnic group. "biological"- Jewish people have middle eastern jewish genes ethnic germans have germanic genes.

The fact that jews are not ethnic germans is enough to remove them from this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.195.132 (talk) 01:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Greed. The jewish level. Extreme lust for high status jobs. Seriously?
Again, bottom line, per WP:VERIFIABILITY, we are looking for verifiable facts. Do you have any reliable sources that can refute any of the specific references given in the list or on the respective articles? Otherwise they will be included, your personal opinion regarding ethnicity notwithstanding. --Amalthea 01:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

I did not give my personal opinion on what an ethnic group is, I did refute your argument that the jews on this list are ethnic germans. The "jewish level" meaning jewish culture(bar/bat mitzvah, jewish cuisine, jewish holidays). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.195.132 (talk) 01:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Judaism is a religion. Not an accurate ethnic indicator. There are people who become Jewish. There are Jews who leave the faith. IP User, would you deny someone with a Jewish father and a German mother, who moves to America status as a German American? How about grandmother? How about great-grandmother? If you follow that path you tread very close to the kind of thinking that led to the Nuremburg laws.
What about the Hugenots. They were welcomed by Prussia to live in Germany. If the grandchild of a Hugenot moved to America, would you deny this person German-American status? These Hugenots and Jews may have practiced a religion different from that of their neighbors, but they spoke German, identified with the German state, fought for Germany, and had German social attitudes. Defining what German is, is a difficult task in itself. Do not make it harder by trying to exclude such groups.imars (talk) 07:00, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

A hugenot who moved to america would probably say that they were hugenot first and germany was just a placed they lived in.

A hugenot has a good chance of having germanic ancestors as well so they could actually say that if their germanic ancestors had populated the land that became germany the german culture would still exist in the land that makes up germany. If jewish people were the only people who had populated the land of germany they would not practice german culture since german culture is dependent on germanic people(specifically germanic males). Jewish people are a middle eastern ethnic group, they are not germanic therefore they should be removed from this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.244.211.29 (talk) 00:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

The suggestion to do a SELECTION between Jews and Germans is simply DISGUSTING! Are you sometimes reading what you are writing? --Sushi Leone (talk) 23:16, 23 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Dear sushi, Selecting who is a german-american is what this article is all about. If categorizing is DISGUSTING to you you should not look at this article and also you should reject all of science. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.115.108.182 (talk) 16:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

But this article is not about selecting Germans from Jews like on a deportation-place! Maybe Nazi-Propaganda is suggesting something different but in reality being jewish and german is not an antagonism! Any yes, I do reject pseudo-science a la Josef Mengele.--Sushi Leone (talk) 07:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

After we delete any Germans who are not real Germans, I propose we delete anyone who does not have American Indian ancestry. This article should be about real Americans and not just people who happen to live. there.imars (talk) 16:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

Defining who's a German-American is impossible as the Germans themselves changed their self-definition in the course of the centuries. The word German became more narrow century by century. Until the end of the 19th century, even Dutch, Flemish, Luxembourgish and Swiss people regarded themselves as part of a culturally, linguistically and ethnically defined "German people" that existed independently of political borders. Some time ago, I read a quote from a Swiss professor. He gave a speech in Nuremberg in 1902 in which he proudly stated that the Swiss are "Germans as well". Nowadays, only (ethnically Germanic) citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany still call themselves Germans. What to do with such lists now? Are Americans of Swiss therefore also of German descent? Although Swiss people have stopped calling themselves Germans? Or do we only consider those as Germans who lived on the territory which now forms the Federal Republic? That would obviously be nonsense. You see. Defining who's German and who's not is an unbelievably difficult task no one can fullfil without others complaining. -- Orthographicus (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

Uhm you seem to be confusing "Germanic" with "Germans" Germanic defines several tribes and its modern decendents, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Dutch are all Germanic, but they are not "German". Their genetic history is as distinct as Germans are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C4EA:CA0:756F:B745:8929:82C0 (talk) 23:05, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

No, he`s not confusing amything, he`s absolutely right: Until the early 20th century Dutch, Flemings and the German-speaking majority of Swiss people considered themselves Germans.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.37.19.253 (talk) 15:08, 29 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

small amount of german ethnicity?

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Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Can I delete all of those people who have a small amount of german ethnicity? I am going to delete all of tha people who are not sourced as being german americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.115.243.36 (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

As you can determine that?. Ccrazymann (talk) 08:13, 19 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

Most German-Americans

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Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Also actors like Charisma Carpenter,Anjelina jolie, William Petersen, Lauren Storm or Sean Astin are partly German descent, but they are not included in the original list of German-American notables.´´´´ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.33.156.129 (talk) 21:57, 26 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

List German-American

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Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

This is a list of notable German-Americans who do not appear on the original list. All those people considered by different sources like German-American (ie, people who are direct descents of Germany, having a German father,to a close ancestor German, etc...) excluded from the original list on this list (Most of the people who appear in it correspond to well- Know actors and actresses). Please, if you have a reliable source to accept or reject these people as German-Americans indicate this:

--Isinbill (talk) 22:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Anastasia is greek. Other persons are only "a bit" german. I think, we have enough famous people to be proud about and don't use the stupid "one-drop-rule"

If it's necessary, that cathegory should be renamed into "persons with some german roots" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.4.226.24 (talk) 22:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

James Lewis Kraft

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Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lewis_Kraft —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.222.220.109 (talk) 16:05, 17 October 2010 (UTC)Reply

Ethnicelebs.com is not a reliable source

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Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

It was used quite a bit [2], so I wanted to start a discussion in case there are questions or concerns. See User_talk:XLinkBot/RevertList#EthniCelebs.com. --Ronz (talk) 19:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Neither is IMDB. --Ronz (talk) 21:24, 29 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

Use of the term German-born

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Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Consider e.g. the following three entries from the section about architects

and observe the following inconsistency: In the corresponding article, Dankmar Adler is referred to as a German-born American architect, but here he is not. He is listed in the same way as Horace Trumbauer, who was born in the United States. In contrast, Hans Schuler is explicitly referred to as a German-born American. This raises a few questions:

  • Should the term German-born be used here at all? Is being German-born relevant? How does it relate to being a German American? (not all German Americans are German-born; is any German-born who emigrated to the US and holds an American citizenship automatically a German American? Answering these questions would also allow us to make progress in the following discussion: talk:Henry Kissinger#German-American)
  • What does that even mean? Somebody born in today's Germany, West Germany, or the GDR is certainly German-born. Is somebody from the German Empire? Is somebody from Prussia? Is somebody born to US-American parents, say, at a military base in Germany, German-born?
  • Is it even necessary to use such a term when articles already mention the place of birth anyway?

Feedback appreciated. Pipping (talk) 17:28, 22 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:23, 5 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Commencing clean-up

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Latest comment: 11 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This list article has accrued some cruft over the years. As I recently did at List of Americans of English descent, I'm going to go through each section and ensure that the target article or cited source support inclusion. I'm also going to remove the irrelevant "estimations" of ancestry ("mostly", "partly", "small amount", and so on). Schazjmd (talk) 15:47, 16 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

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