He stands there in radiant white with a friendly smile, waving, preaching and giving blessings from the command bridge of his cruise ship called the "Catholic Church."
(Image: Christ with the Eucharist, Vicente Juan Masip, 16th century)

The Third Reich came of age in 1938. Hitler began the year as the leader of a right-wing coalition and ended it as the sole master. Until 1938 Der Führer could be dismissed as a ruthless but efficient dictator, a problem for Germany alone; after 1938 he was a threat to the whole of Europe and had set the world on a path toward cataclysmic war.

It's almost ten o'clock in the morning. An assistant at Kulturkaufhaus Dussmann, one of Berlin's biggest book shops, pulls a cart with green plastic boxes to decorate the shop window.

In the sketch the entertainers apparently wanted to demonstrate how Germans greet each other. Well, the tourist wasn’t amused. Back in Munich the man decided to sue the booking agent for having his vacation ruined.

And he won. The court ordered the firm to refund the man a percentage of the $1,000 package, amounting to 50 dollars. Peanuts, of course, but the judges probably wanted to send tour operators a message that jokes about Hitler and the Nazis are best left out of comedy if Germans are in the audience.

First came the howls of protests from German politicians as Italy gave Tunisian refugees residence permits, allowing them to travel freely throughout the continent’s open borders zone.

Then came the threats of stronger national border controls – something that many argue flies in the face of the Schengen zone’s principal of free movement. 

Now Denmark, reacting to pressure from nationalists, has become the first country to introduce more stringent controls on its land borders, sparking anger across the European Union.

If German op-eds are to be believed, a different kind of revolution took place there last Sunday, although opinions remain divided on the prospects for either success or failure.

After almost 60 years with the same party in the driver’s seat in Baden-Württemberg, the new head of government in the state that brought us Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and the Black Forest Cake will be a Green - not from Mars, mind you, but from the Green Party, which were the big winners of Sunday’s elections.

The other day German historian Götz Aly went to see a performance of Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde in Weimar, a city south of Berlin where Germany's first democratic constitution was signed after World War I. The production was excellent, the singers superb, including the famous Franco Farina in the role of Tristan, he raved in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. The audience was enthusiastic, but, he said he was flabbergasted by the poor attendance:  more than half of the seats were empty.

The German government’s decision not to participation in military action against Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi – primarily for domestic political reasons – is deeply irresponsible, argues Markus Horeld from ZEIT ONLINE. 

Hans and Sophie Scholl are among those most closely associated with the anti-Hitler movement in Nazi Germany.  From June 1942 to February 1943, they secretly printed anti-war leaflets with slogans like "Down with Hitler!" and "Freedom!" which they distributed to the public.

In the 19th century a canal was built connecting Lake Erie in northern Ohio to the Ohio River in the southern part of the state. The canal went straight south, but then in Cincinnati bent to the east and then again to the south to the river, forming an L-shaped configuration.

In that corner of the canal, Germans first congregated, making for the beginnings of the German district. Bridges were built over the canal leading into the district and it was said that one went “Over-the-Rhine” by going over the bridges.

The event is part of the three-part lecture series this winter hosted by the Max Planck Florida Institute. Titled, “A Balancing Act: Linking the Global Carbon Cycle to the Mitigation of Climate Change,” Dr. Heimann’s talk will explore the undeniable fact that the global climate is warming, as evidenced by multiple indicators, such as temperatures recorded at weather stations or the retreat of glaciers worldwide.

George Washington was born February 22, 1732 and Abraham Lincoln was  born February 12, 1809. Both of their birthdays used to be celebrated.

Germerica.com came on the scene as there was nothing like it. Since 2008, it has provided the latest news on a wide variety of topics, focusing especially on the German-speaking countries and areas of Europe and German heritage regions in the U.S.

At several programs this past year, people came upto me and said they read about the programs I was speaking at by means of Germerica.com. These included programs at Denison, Iowa and New Ulm, Minnesota.

We pointed out that German-Americans don’t vote as a block. However, we do know the states that have populations predominantly of German ancestry, so we can actually get a general idea of how they voted.

Politico.com has provided election maps of the November 2010 elections. Take a look at their maps.

First, its map for the vote for the House:

http://www.politico.com/2010/maps/#/House/2010

The German vote first flexed its muscle nationally in the 1860 presidential election that brought Abraham Lincoln into office as President.

Carl Schurz, photo, and other German-American spokesmen campaigned across the country galvanizing support for Lincoln, bringing into being what was called the German vote.

By Don Heinrich Tolzmann

On the 6th of October, thirteen German families led by Franz Daniel Pastorius came ashore in Philadelphia from their ocean voyage on the Concord and founded Germantown.

Although Germans first settled at Jamestown in 1608, it was not until 1683 that a permanent German settlement was established at Germantown.

It is good to know that this Stammtisch is well read across the country. At the conference in Denison, Iowa this last fall, I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of people there, who are regular readers of Germerica.net. (http://www.moin-moin.us )

This July, travels will bring me to northern Ohio and southwestern Minnesota and I would like to invite friends of Germerica.net to them, should their travel plans bring them to the same areas.

BP’s origins go back to before the First World War, when Great Britain’s Empire was still in place. Without the Empire it is doubtful that such a corporation could have gained the foothold, some might say stranglehold, it has on the oil industry today.

BP’s origins go back to before the First World War, when Great Britain’s Empire was still in place. Without the Empire it is doubtful that such a corporation could have gained the foothold, some might say stranglehold, it has on the oil industry today.

Bernhard von Bülow’s comments about Place in the Sun remind us that Germany had been seeking a place for centuries, one that it thought it had finally attained by means of unification in 1870. His comments reflected this century long search for a place in the international community.