We are winding up a river cruise which spent a week on the Rhine.
Our guides were just polite when we told them our ancestors were German.my wife’s Pennsylvania,mine Virginia.
I wish I knew more how they got there so, NB, I will contact you.
please do
Americans of German ancestry find that this often doesn’t go very far among Germans in Germany. I’m close to 50% myself.
When I was stationed there I spoke enough German to meet with the local Forstmeister whenever our unit went to the field. OTOH my colleague looked German with deutsche aufname & spoke the language fluently. He was appalled to find that local Germans didn’t regard him as a member of the `Volk’.
Years later another friend who is descended from Missouri German settlers went to an event at the German embassy in Washington for Americans of German ancestry. He was shocked at the cool reception he got.
“I walked into a room where a bunch of people were speaking German. They looked at me for a moment, then went back to speaking German.”
Then there’s that old saying: “Germans don’t like Poles, French, Italians or British. In fact, they don’t really like each other.”