Famous German-Americans
Americans of German, Austrian, or
German-Swiss Ancestry
A Biographical Index: D-E-F
An alphabetical list of significant Americans, both living and dead, who were born in German-speaking Europe or had Germanic ancestors—handy for biographical projects or general inspiration. For some of them, you can click on the name or link to learn more. Also see German-Americans listed by category (architecture, music, etc.) Our list also includes Austrian and Swiss-Americans.
Also see: Famous Germans and the Top 100 Germans
German-Americans
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D
Walter Johannes Damrosch (1862-1950) German-American conductor and composer born in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland). Damrosch was the conductor of the NBC (National Broadcasting Co.) symphony orchestra from 1928 to 1942. His father Leopold and brother Frank were also prominent musicians.
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974- ) is an American actor with a German mother and an Italian father. He gained attention in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and then went aboard the Titanic. More recently he portrayed Howard Hughes in The Aviator. WEB > DiCaprio - German-Hollywood Connection
Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) was a well-known German-American actresss and singer born in Berlin. WEB > Dietrich - German-Hollywood Connection
Rudolph Dirks (1877-1968), the creator of the beloved cartoon strip "The Katzenjammer Kids," was born in Heide, Germany (now in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein), but he moved to Chicago with his parents in 1884 when he was only seven. Rudolph and his brother Gus later moved to New York to work as cartoonists. Rudolph Dirks' "Katzenjammer Kids" cartoon first appeared in The New York Journal on December 12, 1897. Dirks' strip was modeled after Wilhelm Busch's "Max und Moritz" stories, which also featured two mischievious boys. "The Katzenjammer Kids" was one of the earliest newspaper comic strips. In fact, it was created in response to the first American comic strip ever, Richard Felton Outcault's "The Yellow Kid," which was published by the New York World. WEB > The Katzenjammer Kids - Rudoph Dirks - A good fan site by Jim Lowe
Everett M. Dirksen (1896-1969) was a prominent Republican Congressman (1933-1948) and Senator (1951-1969) from Minnesota. Everett McKinley Dirksen was the minority leader of the Senate from 1959-1969. "Dirksen was the son of immigrant parents, part of a big colony of their countrymen which had settled in Pekin, Illinois, in the mid-1800s. The Deutschlanders were frugal, industrious, civic-minded, and Republican." - from The Dirksen Center bio
The Donner Party (1846-47) was named for George Donner, a German emigrant who had first settled in North Carolina before moving west. In the fall of 1846 the 87 members of the Donner party became trapped in deep snow in the Sierra Nevada range as they made their way to California. In order to survive the winter, several members of the group resorted to cannibalism. Johann Ludwig (Louis) Christian Keseberg—born in Berleberg, Westphalia in 1814—was one of the survivors tainted by the acts of cannibalism. Several other members of the ill-fated Donner party were Austrian or German. See the Donner Party Roster Web page for more.
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) was an American novelist and journalist. Theodore Herman Dreiser was born into a German-American family in Terre Haute, Indiana, on August 27, 1871. His parents were Sarah Schanab and Johann Dreiser. His father had emigrated from Mayen, Germany in 1844 and eventually landed in the American Midwest, where large numbers of fellow Germans were found. WEB > Bio of Dreiser by T.P. Riggio
Kirsten Dunst (1982- ) is an American actress with a German father and a Swedish mother. She shot to fame in the Spider-Man movies. WEB > Dunst - German-Hollywood Connection
Also see German-Americans
by Categories (Architecture, Music, etc.)
E
Gertrude Ederle (1905-2003) was the first woman to swim the English Channel. The German-American swimming champ was born on October 23, 1905 in New York City, one of six children. Her father was a butcher from Germany. When Gertrude was eight, while visiting her grandmother in Germany, she fell into a pond, a fateful experience that led her to learn to swim. At the Paris Olympics in 1924 she won gold in the 400-meter freestyle relay, and bronze in the 100 m and 400 m individual freestyle events. In her 1926 Channel swim she beat the men's record by more than two hours. She held the women's record until 1950, when Florence Chadwick crossed the Channel in 13 hours and 20 minutes.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was born in Ulm, Württemberg on March 14, 1879. He spent his early formative years in Munich. He and his family later lived in Italy and Switzerland. Einstein published his famous "Special Theory of Relativity" in 1905. The German-American scientist and Nobel Prize winner (1921) is best known for his Theory of Relativity. More...
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) is one of only two American presidents of German extraction. (The other was Herbert Hoover.) After serving as Allied supreme commander in World War II, Eisenhower became the 34th president of the U.S. (1953-1961). On Oct. 14, 1890 in Denison, Texas, Dwight David Eisenhower was born into a German-American family that goes back to Johann Nicolaus Eisenhauer (ca. 1691-ca. 1760) who came to America with his son Johann Peter in 1741 and settled in Pennsylvania. WEB > Eisenhower Bio from the White House site
Roland Emmerich (1955- ), the German director of Hollywood films including Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, and The Day After Tomorrow, was born in Stuttgart. WEB > Emmerich - German-Hollywood Connection
F
Andreas Feininger (1909-1999) was a German-American photographer and the son of Lyonel Feininger (below).
Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) was born in New York City to artistic German parents. (His father Karl was a violinist, his mother a singer.) Unlike most German-Americans in this index, Leonell (his real name) Feininger went from the U.S. to Germany and then back. In 1887 he went to Germany to study art in Hamburg and Berlin. In 1924 Feininger founded "The Blue Four" with fellow artists Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Alexei von Jawlensky. Feininger became associated with the Bauhaus in 1926. With the closing of the Bauhaus by the Nazis and the deteriorating political situation in Germany, Feininger returned to the U.S. in 1937. WEB > L. Feiniger - DHM (Deutsch)
Harvey S. Firestone (1868-1938) founded the American tire and rubber company that bears his name, but has been owned by the Japanese Bridgestone Corporation since 1988. The Firestone family goes back to German immigrants named Feuerstein. Harvey Firestone's great-great-great grandfather was Hans Nikolaus Feuerstein, born March 25, 1712 in Berg, Alsace, a German-speaking region now in France. Hans and his wife Catharina arrived in America in September 1753 and Hans is believed to have died in Pennsylvania in 1763. WEB > Firestone100.com - corporate history
August Charles Fruehauf (1867-1930) was a German-American blacksmith who invented the tractor trailer or semi-trailer (Sattelschlepper in German) in 1914. Four years later he later founded the Fruehauf Trailer Corporation. More German inventors
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For FILM PEOPLE: The German-Hollywood Connection
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