Kultur 1

Hallo! I was particularly interested in this article because I am 100% German, know many people in primarily German-American communities, and have been to Germany a few times. I noticed several things in the article that were contrary to what I thought about Germans and German-Americans. For one, I thought the majority of Germans immigrated to America just after WWI, but the article says that the majority of Germans immigrated in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In addition, I was unaware that so much of the population of America classified themselves as German-American. An aspect of the article that I believe needed to be expanded on, was the section about religious diversity. From what I already knew about the German culture, the majority of German and German-Americans are either Catholic or Lutheran. I would be interested to see the actually statistics of the religions Germans and German-Americans follow.

Germans have also influenced popular culture much more than I thought. Initially, the only piece if German influence media, not based on WWI or WWII, was The Sound Of Music. However, as I read through the article, I saw how many things have come from German culture or German people. The piece that surprised me most was Bambi, I had no idea it was a German made story! I loved to see all the German influence that is in America, but my favorite German pop culture item so hit America was left out; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQYQTFudrqc

Jake Freund