Germans and Germany

Germany provided a home for many but not for all Germans. Long before the founding of Germany, German speakers had left their homes in Central Europe in hopes of a better life in the mountainous regions of Hungary and in Russia along the River Volga. North America also had become a target of migration from Western and Northern German regions resulting in the settlement of German speakers in Pennsylvania, New York, and Texas. These German settlements in the North emerged long before the founding of the United States and before the annexation of Texas by the United States. German settlements across Eastern Europe and North and South America formed the basis for a global German diaspora. Throughout the nineteenth century, millions of German speakers followed in the footsteps of their ancestors and migrated to North America. South America became a target too in the second half of the nineteenth century. The governments of Argentina and Brazil actively encouraged Germans to move there. More and more German families, thereby, became part of transnational networks with relatives spread across the globe. And those who decided to stay in Germany enjoyed reading Karl May’s Winnetou stories about the extinction of North America’s native populations.