German Immigrant timeline 1900 to Present

1910 – In this year, an estimated 2.3 million German-born immigrants lived in the United States. With declining immigration and increasing assimilation, the number of German-language publications fell to about 550.

1920 – Roughly 1.7 million German-born immigrants lived in the United States; the number of German-language publications fell to about 230.

1933 – The coming to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany caused a significant immigration of leading German scientists, writers, musicians, scholars, and other artists and intellectuals to the United States to escape persecution.

Among them were such notables as Albert Einstein, Bruno Walter, Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Hans Bethe, Thomas Mann, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Weil, Billy Wilder, Hannah Arendt, and Hans Morgenthau. By the end of World War II, there were some 130,000 of these German and Austrian refugees living in America.

1940 – An estimated 1.2 million German-born immigrants lived in the United States.

1948 – The Displaced Persons Act made general provisions for the immigration of displaced persons in Eastern Europe, including ethnic Germans, to the United States.

1950s – Between 1951 and 1960, 580,000 Germans immigrated to the United States.

1960s – Between 1961 and 1970, 210,000 Germans immigrated to the United States.

1970s – Between 1971 and 1980, 65,000 Germans immigrated to the United States.

1983 – The United States and Germany celebrated the German-American Tricentennial, marking the 300th anniversary of German immigration to Pennsylvania.

1987 – German-American Day was established by Congressional resolution and presidential proclamation.

1990 – According to the Bureau of the Census, 58 million Americans claimed to be solely or partially of German descent. German Americans were highly assimilated, and the use of German in the United States had declined dramatically. Some German language newspapers continued to be published in the United States, for example the California Staats-Zeitung.