“Militarism” is a pretty good way to describe 19th Century German culture.

Before the American Revolution, large numbers of Germans had already settled in the U.S., many in the state of Pennsylvania, where they were called “Pennsylvania Dutch.” (You asked them what their nationality was, and they said, “Deutsch,” so you put them down as Dutch.)

There is a fairy tale (still believed by many people in Germany) that the Continental Congress voted to decide what the official language of the United States would be, and English won by only one vote. The one vote supposedly came from Benedict Arnold; otherwise we would be speaking German. Actually, there never were nearly enough Germans for that, and if you look at the names of the people who attended the Continental Congress, few if any of them were German. This story was invented by the American Bund (a pro-Nazi organization) in the 1930s.

Immigration came in waves. One bunch of Germans arrived after the Napoleonic Wars and a second wave after the failed liberal revolution of 1848. Many of the latter group found themselves fighting (on both sides) in the American Civil War.

During WWI, there was widespread hostility toward German-Americans. The German language was forbidden in the schools. Sauerkraut was renamed “Liberty Cabbage” (it didn’t stick), and Frankfurters became “Hot Dogs” (it did). Eventually, we got over it.

During the 1930s, many political refugees from Germany came to the United States. Some of these were famous writers (Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht), scientists (Albert Einstein) or entertainers (Billy Wilder, Marlene Dietrich). This gave a cultural and scientific boost to the United States, even as it deprived Germany of some excellent talent. Most of the refugees, of course, were ordinary people who had the bad luck to be Jewish or otherwise unpopular with the Nazis.

Unlike WWI, the Second World War didn’t lead to any widespread hostility toward German-Americans, most of whom were firmly anti-Nazi. (With the Japanese, it was a very different story.) German prisoners in the United States (at one point, there were about 600,000 of them) were, in general, very well treated, and some were disappointed about having to go back to Germany after the war.

To get back to your original question, Germany first became a nation in 1871 under the King of Prussia and with a solid push from the scheming of Otto von Bismarck, his chancellor and the real power behind the throne. German culture at that time can be described as “militarist/pacifist.” They had a lot of big parades, but no wars between 1871 and 1914. Bismarck was a gloomy sort who believed that Germany had already expanded as much as it safely could, and that no good would come from taking in more French or Polish provinces.

Another way of describing Bismarck’s Germany would be “liberal/monarchist”. Germany had a parliament (the Reichstag), abundant freedom of speech, social welfare and regular elections. On the other hand, real power remained in the hands of the Kaiser.

There were persecuted minorities, but they weren’t Jews; they were Catholics. Bismarck viewed the political power of the Catholic Church as a threat to the monarchy and fought a (mainly fruitless) cultural war (Kulturkampf) against it. He also fought against the Social Democrats, a powerful socialist party, which he tried to suppress. This led to his own dismissal in 1890. (The Social Democrats went on to become the dominant party of the Weimar period.)

German immigration in the late 19th Century probably had less to do with politics than with an economic recession which plagued Germany at that time.

I hope some of this is interesting. For further information:


www.realbeer.com/edu/abm/barons.php

www.ulib.iupui.edu/kade/adams/chap1.html

www.germany-info.org/relaunc...per.html

www.answers.com/topic/german-american-3

www.bergen.org/AAST/Proje...ration.html

www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/2600.html