This is a concise survey of the role that America's largest ethnic group, the German-Americans, has played in American history from the 17th century to the present. The term "German-American" in this volume refers to immigrants and their offspring from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other German-speaking areas of Europe. Hence, the term "German" is used in a linguistic, cultural and ethnic sense to cover the sum of German-speaking immigrants and their descendants. This study is divided into six parts. Part I, "Immigration and Settlement" traces German-American history from the earliest beginnings into the present time, while Parts II and III demonstrate the role German-Americans have played in "Preserving the Union" and "Building the Nation." Part IV gives an overview of the German-American experience. Part V discusses German-American Heritage Month, and Part VI is a select bibliography. Also includes map that shows percentages of German-Americans in each of the United States, a census table and a fullname index.

In February 1942, barely two months after he had declared war on the United States, Adolf Hitler praised America's great industrial achievements and admitted that Germany would need some time to catch up. The Americans, he said, had shown the way in developing the most efficient methods of production—especially in iron and coal, which formed the basis of modern industrial civilization. He also touted America's superiority in the field of transportation, particularly the automobile. He loved automobiles and saw in Henry Ford a great hero of the industrial age. Hitler's personal train was even code-named "Amerika." In Hitler and America, historian Klaus P. Fischer seeks to understand more deeply how Hitler viewed America, the nation that was central to Germany's defeat. He reveals Hitler's split-minded image of America: America and Amerika. Hitler would loudly call the United States a feeble country while at the same time referring to it as an industrial colossus worthy of imitation. Or he would belittle America in the vilest terms while at the same time looking at the latest photos from the United States, watching American films, and amusing himself with Mickey Mouse cartoons. America was a place that Hitler admired—for the can-do spirit of the American people, which he attributed to their Nordic blood—and envied—for its enormous territorial size, abundant resources, and political power. Amerika, however, was to Hitler a mongrel nation, grown too rich too soon and governed by a capitalist elite with strong ties to the Jews. Across the Atlantic, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had his own, far more realistically grounded views of Hitler. Fischer contrasts these with the misconceptions and misunderstandings that caused Hitler, in the end, to see only Amerika, not America, and led to his defeat.

Describes why many Germans immigrated to the United States and how they adapted to their new environment.

John J. McCloy was the "wise man" of the Cold War era who had the longest substantial American connection with Germany. A self-made man of great ambition, enormous vitality, and extraordinary tenacity, McCloy served in several government positions before being appointed High Commissioner of Germany in 1949. America's Germany is the first study of McCloy's critical years in Germany. Drawing on deep archival research and interviews, Thomas Schwartz argues that McCloy played a decisive role in the American effort to restore democracy and integrate Germany into Western Europe. Convinced that reunification should wait until Germany was firmly linked to the West, McCloy implemented a policy of "dual containment," designed to keep both the Soviet Union and Germany from dominating Europe. McCloy represented the best and the worst of the values and beliefs of a generation of American foreign policy leaders. He strove to learn from the mistakes made in the aftermath of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, when the West did not do enough to help German democracy survive. Yet his leniency toward convicted Nazi war criminals compromised the ideals for which America had fought in World War II. America's Germany offers an essential history for those wishing to understand the recent changes in Germany and Europe. The book describes a unique period in the relationship between America and Germany, when the two nations forged an extraordinary range of connections--political, economic, military, and cultural--as the Federal Republic became part of the Western club and the new Europe.

The post-World War II occupations of Germany and Japan set standards for postconflict nation-building that have not since been matched. Only in recent years has the United States has felt the need to participate in similar transformations, but it is now facing one of the most challenging prospects since the 1940s: Iraq. The authors review seven case studies--Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan--and seek lessons about what worked well and what did not. Then, they examine the Iraq situation in light of these lessons. Success in Iraq will require an extensive commitment of financial, military, and political resources for a long time. The United States cannot afford to contemplate early exit strategies and cannot afford to leave the job half completed.

'A New History of German Literature' offers some 200 essays on events in German literary history.