German America

"The United States of Germania," says Ivan Simic in answer to the question posed in his title — Which Country Really Rules the World? Says Mr. Simic, "For the past hundred years United States has been under strong influence from Germany and German industry, and that same influence and number of German-Americans living in the US made the United States to become the biggest German State." He continues:

Germans started arriving in the United States in 1608, but they were not important at that time as they became later. The largest number of arrivals came 1840-1900, when Germans formed the largest group of immigrants coming to the US, outnumbering even the Irish and English. German Americans and those Germans who settled in the US have been influential in most every field, from politics, economy, science, to architecture, to entertainment to commercial industry.

Perhaps this is what H.L. Mencken meant when he said, "To call the roll of Americans eminent in almost any field of human endeavor above the most elemental is to call a list of strange and often outlandish names" — Ludicrous Albion. Mr. Simic goes on to note that we "account for 50 million people, or 17% of the US population" and "Germans have contributed to a vast number of areas in American culture, military, economy, journalism, and technology, among others."