List Of German Americans

German Americans (german: link=no, Deutschamerikaner) are citizens of the United States who are of German ancestry; they form the largest ethnic ancestry group in the United States, accounting for 17% of U.S. population.; In 2009, 50.7 million claimed German ancestry. The 2000 census gives 15.2% or 42.8 million. The 1990 census had 23.3% or 57.9 million. The first significant numbers arrived in the 1680s in New York and Pennsylvania. Some eight million German immigrants have entered the United States since that point. Immigration continued in substantial numbers during the 19th century; the largest number of arrivals moved 1840–1900, when Germans formed the largest group of immigrants coming to the U.S., outnumbering the Irish and English. Some arrived seeking religious or political freedom, others for economic opportunities greater than those in Europe, and others for the chance to start afresh in the New World. California and Pennsylvania have the largest populations of German origin, with more than six million German Americans residing in the two states alone. More than 50 million people in the United States identify German as their ancestry; it is often mixed with other Northern European ethnicities. This list also includes people of German Jewish descent.

Americans of German descent live in nearly every American county, from the East Coast, where the first German settlers arrived in the 17th century, to the West Coast and in all the states in between. German Americans and those Germans who settled in the U.S. have been influential in almost every field, from science, to architecture, to entertainment, and to commercial industry.

Art and literature

Architects

* Dankmar Adler – architect
* Adolf Cluss – architect, builder of numerous public buildings in Washington, D.C.
* Ferdinand Gottlieb – architect heading his own firm, Ferdinand Gottlieb & Associates, based in Dobbs Ferry, New York
* Walter Gropius – pioneer in modern architecture, founder of Bauhaus
* Albert Kahn – industrial architect; known as the "architect of Detroit", of Jewish descent
* Richard Kiehnel – senior partner of Kiehnel, Elliot and Chalfant
* Henry C. Koch – architect based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Joseph Molitor – Chicago-based church architect
* John A. Roebling – architect, known for designing the Brooklyn Bridge
* Washington Roebling – civil engineer known for his work on the Brooklyn Bridge, which was designed by his father John A. Roebling
* Frederick C. Sauer – architect, particularly in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, region of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
* Frederick G. Scheibler Jr. – Art Nouveau Pittsburgh architect
* August Schoenborn – designed the United States Capitol Dome
* Hans Schuler – German-born American sculptor and monument maker; first American sculptor to win the Salon Gold Medal
* Adolph Strauch – landscape architect
* Horace Trumbauer – architectBaltzell, Edward Digby. ''Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia'' (Transaction Publishers, 1996), pp. 332–33.
* Ludwig Mies van der Rohe – pioneer of modern architecture, second Chicago School of Architecture
* Clarence C. Zantzinger – architect and public servant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Artists

* Anni Albers – printmaker, textile artist
* Josef Albers – painter and graphic artistRoderick Conway Morris (October 21, 2011)
Making of a Bauhaus Master
''New York Times''.
* Leonard Bahr – portrait painter, muralist, illustrator and educator. He worked for many years as a painting professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
* Earl W. Bascom – painter, printmaker, and sculptor ("Cowboy of Cowboy Artists")
* Robert Benecke – early photographer
* Albert Bierstadt – painter, known for his large landscapes of the American West
* Richard Bock – sculptor and associate of Frank Lloyd Wright
* Charles Dellschau – one of America's earliest known outsider artists, draftsman engineer, creating drawings, collages and watercolors of airplanes and airships
* Rudolph Dirks – comic strip artist who created ''The Katzenjammer Kids – photographer and photojournalist best remembered for his photograph capturing the celebration of V-J Day
* Jimmy Ernst – German-born artist
* Carl Eytel – German-born artist of desert landscapes living in early 20th-century Palm Springs, California
* Claire Falkenstein – sculptor, painter, print-maker and jewelry designer known for her large-scale abstract metal and glass sculptures
* Andreas Feininger – photographer and writer on photographic technique
* Lyonel Feininger – painter and caricaturist
* Steven Fischer – film producer and cartoonist
* Carl Giers – early photographerJames A. Hoobler and Sarah Hunter Marks,
Nashville: From the Collection of Carl and Otto Giers
' (Arcadia Publishing, 2000), p. 7.
* George Grosz – member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group, known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s
* Don Heck – comics artist best known for co-creating the Marvel Comics characters Iron Man and the Wasp, and for his long run penciling the Marvel superhero-team series ''The Avengers'' during the 1960s Silver Age of comic books
* Uli Herzner – fashion designer
* Hans Hofmann – abstract expressionist painter
* Ubbe Ert Iwwerks – Academy Award-winning animator, cartoonist and special effects technician, famous for his work for Walt Disney
* Klaus Janson – comic book artist (inker), working regularly for Marvel Comics and DC Comics and sporadically for independent companies
* Ulli Kampelmann – painter and filmmaker
* Kenya (Robinson) – multimedia artist whose work includes performance, sculpture and installation
* Charles Kleibacker – fashion designer who earned the nickname "Master of the Bias"
* Franz Jozef Kline – abstract expressionist painter
* Harold Knerr – illustrator of ''The Katzenjammer Kids'' until 1949
* Fritz Kredel - woodcut artist and illustrator known for fairy tale and young readers' fiction drawings, delicate and hand-colored botanical woodcuts, and US and European armies' uniforms over time. He captured favorite stories and his childhood before WWII.
* John Lewis Krimmel – America's first genre painter
* Emanuel Leutze – history painter best known for his painting '' Washington Crossing the Delaware''
* Cornelius Krieghoff – painter
* Nicola Marschall – artist, designed the first Confederate flag and the Confederate uniform
* Louis Maurer – lithographer
* David Muench – landscape and nature photographer known for portraying the American western landscape
* Marc Muench – sports and landscape photographer
* Charles Christian Nahl – painter who is called California's first significant artist
* Thomas Nast – political cartoonist
* Elisabet Ney – sculptor
* Erwin Panofsky – art historian, of Jewish descent
* Julian Ritter – Classical Realist painter best known for his paintings of nudes, clowns and portraits and his ill-fated voyage of the South Pacific
* Severin Roesen – still life painter
* Paulus Roetter – landscape and botanical painter
* Christopher Sauer – earliest type founder in America, published the first German Bible, 1743, and the first religious magazine in America, 1764
* Frank Schoonover - illustrator who worked in Wilmington, Delaware. A member of the Brandywine School, he was a contributing illustrator to magazines and did more than 5,000 paintings.
* Christian Schwartz – type designer
* Christian Siriano – fashion designer
* Gustavus Sohon – artist
* Henry William Stiegel – glassmaker and ironmaster
* Alfred Stieglitz – photographer instrumental in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture
* Ruth VanSickle Ford – painter, art teacher, and owner of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts
* Richard Veenfliet – artist known for illustration-figure, genre and landscape
* Patrizia von Brandenstein – production designer
* Kat Von D (Katherine von Drachenberg) – tattoo artist
* Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven – avant-garde, Dadaist artist, and poet
* Franz von Holzhausen – vehicle designer and since 2008, he has been in charge of design at Tesla, Inc. He designed the Tesla Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, and the unveiled but not-yet-released Cybertruck, Semi, and second-generation Tesla Roadster.
* Baroness Hilla von Rebay – abstract painter, helped establish the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City
* Karl Ferdinand Wimar – painter

Authors and writers

* Kathy Acker – author
* Wendall Anschutz – television newsman for KCTV in Kansas City
* Sade Baderinwa – news reporter-journalist
* Matthias Bartgis – printer and publisher
* L. Frank Baum – author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator of '' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz''
* Vicki Baum – writer
* Salvador Brau – journalist, poet, writer
* Gene Brewer – author of the K-PAX series of novels
* Charles Bukowski – poet and novelist
* Caspar Butz – journalist, politician
* George DiCaprio – writer, editor, and major west coast underground comic book distributor
* Theodore Dreiser – author of the naturalist school, known for dealing with the gritty reality of life
* Gottfried Duden – travel author
* Roger Ebert – Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic, journalist, and screenwriter
* Martin Ebon – author of non-fiction books from the paranormal to politics
* Max Ehrmann – widely known for his 1927 prose poem "Desiderata" (Latin: "things desired").
* Joseph Eiboeck – newspaper editor and publisher of ''Iowa Staats-Anzeiger'' and author of ''The Germans in Iowa and Their Achievements'' (1900)
* Charles Follen – poet and patriot
* Cornelia Funke – author
* James Grauerholz – writer, editor-in-chief, bibliographer, and literary executor of the estate of William S. Burroughs
* Bob Gretz – award-winning sportswriter and broadcaster
* Hans Halberstadt – author, filmmaker, historian and photographer
* Geoffrey Hartman – literary theorist
* Ursula Hegi – novelist
* Patricia Highsmith – novelist known for her psychological thrillers
* Friedrich Hirth – sinologue
* Max Hofmann – correspondent
* Amal Kassir – international award-winning spoken word poet.
* Stephen King – author
* Chuck Klosterman – writer
* Siegfried Kracauer – film historian, sociologist and author
* Herbert Arthur Krause – historian
* D.L. Lang – poet laureate of Vallejo, California
* Fritz Leiber – science fiction writer
* Walter Lippman – writer, journalist, and political commentator
* H. L. Mencken – journalist
* Henry Miller – writer and painter
* Anna Balmer Myers – author of Mennonite (Pennsylvania Dutch) novels
* Oswald Ottendorfer – journalist associated with the development of the German-language '' New Yorker Staats-Zeitung'' into a major newspaper
* Sylvia Plath – poet, novelist, and short story writer
* Frederik Pohl – science-fiction writer, editor
* Erich Maria Remarque – German-born author, naturalized United States citizen
* Conrad Richter – Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist
* Mary Roberts Rinehart – author
* Hope Rockefeller Aldrich – journalist
* Irma S. Rombauer – author of '' The Joy of Cooking''
* Diane Sawyer – journalist
* Jack Schaefer – author of ''Shane''
* Paul Schrader – screenwriter, film director, and film critic
* Peter Schweizer – author of '' Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy'' and ''Clinton Cash''
* Ernest Schwiebert – angling writer
* Charles Sealsfield – pseudonym of Austrian American author of novels and travelogues Carl (or Karl) Anton Postl
* Dr. Seuss (born Theodor Seuss Geisel) – writer and cartoonist
* Maria Shriver – journalist and author
* Mona Simpson – novelist and university professor, biological younger sister of the late Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs
* Curt Siodmak – screenwriter
* Nicholas Sparks – author and screenwriter
* Gertrude Stein – author, of Jewish descent
* John Steinbeck – Nobel prize-winning author, one of the best-known and most widely read American writers of the 20th century
* Henry F. Urban – journalist, author
* Henry Villard – journalist
* Kurt Vonnegut – novelist
* Tessa Gräfin von Walderdorff – writer, socialite
* George Weigel – author; political and social activist

Businesspeople and entrepreneurs

* Philip Anschutz – billionaire businessman who owns or controls many companies in a variety of industries
* John Jacob Astor – business magnate, merchant and investor and the first multi-millionaire in the United Stateshttp://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/astor.html "German-American merchant and financier, born near Heidelberg, Germany."
* John Jacob Astor IV – millionaire businessman, real estate developer, inventor, writer and a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish–American War
* William Waldorf Astor, William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor – financier and statesman
* George Frederick Baer – lawyer, Social Darwinist railroad baron (former President of the Reading Railroad)
* Ralph Baer – father of the home video game console, of German-Jewish descent
* John Jacob Bausch – optician who co-founded Bausch & Lomb
* Andy Bechtolsheim, Andy von Bechtolsheim – co-founder of Sun Microsystems and one of the first investors in Google
* Maximilian Berlitz – Berlitz Language School
* Isaac Wolfe Bernheim – businessman notable for starting the I. W. Harper brand of premium bourbon whiskey
* Bernard Baruch – financier, stock-market speculator, statesman, and political consultant
* William Edward Boeing – aviation pioneer who founded Boeing, The Boeing Company
* Paul Bonwit – founder of Bonwit Teller department store in New York City
* Emil J. Brach, Founder of Brach's Candy
* George Brumder – newspaper publisher and businessman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Clyde Cessna – aircraft designer, aviator, and founder of the Cessna Aircraft Corporation
* Walter Chrysler – Chrysler automobile developer
* George A. Dickel – whiskey distributor; born in Grünberg, Hesse
* Chris Deering – businessman and marketer best known for his role as president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe"MCV LEGENDS – Chris Deering"
, MCVUK.com, (Retrieved November 12, 2015)
* Noah Dietrich – CEO of the Howard Hughes empire
* William S. Dietrich II – industrialist who took over and expanded Dietrich Industries, a Steel frame, steel framing manufacturer which he eventually sold to Worthington Industries. Late in life, he made two of the largest charitable contributions in higher education history, to the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
* Walt Disney – film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist
* John Doerr – venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
* Richard Driehaus – chairman of Driehaus Capital Management LLC
* August Duesenberg – automobile pioneer manufacturerhttp://www.helipad-consulting.com/duesy/duesyeng.html "The property No. 34, today Salzufler Strasse 48, since 1995 private home and office of HELIPAD.consulting/Germany, is the house where the brothers Fritz and August Düsenberg lived until emigration to America in the year 1885 "http://www.lippe-auswanderer.de/Census.pdf "Emigration from Lippe to the USA"http://www.lemgo.net/259.html "Fritz und August Duesenberg aus Kirchheide"
* Fred Duesenberg – automobile pioneer designer, manufacturer and sportsman
* Edward Filene – businessman, social entrepreneur and philanthropist
* Harvey Firestone – founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
* Nicholas C. Forstmann – one of the founding partners of Forstmann Little & Company, a private equity firmhttp://www.songwritershalloffame.org/ceremony/entry/C3107/5059 "The grandson of German and Italian immigrants, he embodies the entrepreneurial spirit of risking it all for a shot at success."
* Theodore J. Forstmann – one of the founding partners of Forstmann Little & Company, a private equity firm, and chairman and CEO of IMG (company), IMG, a leading global sports and media company
* Bill Gates – software magnate and investor, founder and former chairman of Microsoft
* Daniel Frank Gerber – manufacturer of baby foodhttp://german.about.com/library/blsurname01.htm "Germanic Surname Lexikon (Gerber)"
* Frank Daniel Gerber – manufacturer of baby food
* Henry Giessenbier – banker and founder of the Young Men's Progressive Civic Association in 1915 and the United States Junior Chamber in 1920
* Theodor August Heintzman – piano manufacturer (Heintzman & Co.) and inventor
* Henry J. Heinz – H. J. Heinz Company ketchup founder
* H. J. Heinz II – best known as Jack Heinz, a business executive and CEO of the H. J. Heinz Company
* H. Robert Heller – President and CEO of VISA U.S.A. and Federal Reserve Board of Governors
* Richard Hellmann – company founder of Hellmanns
* Joseph A. Hemann – educator, newspaper publisher, and banker
* Milton S. Hershey – The Hershey Company, Hershey chocolate founder
* Barron Hilton – chairman of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotel chain and grandfather of Paris Hilton
* Conrad Hilton – founder of the Hilton Hotel chain and great-grandfather of Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton
* Richard Hilton – hotelier and real estate entrepreneur, father of Paris Hilton
* George A. Hormel – founder of Hormel Foods Corporation
* Steve Jobs – software tycoon, co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc.
* Max Kade – pharmaceutical tycoon, endowed the Max Kade Foundation
* Otto Hermann Kahn – investment banker
* Jawed Karim – co-founder of YouTube and designer of key parts of PayPal
* Edgar J. Kaufmann – department store entrepreneur
* William Myron Keck – oil entrepreneur and philanthropist who is now best known for giving his name to the W. M. Keck Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations
* Peter Kern (American businessman), Peter Kern – confectioner and mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee
* John W. Kieckhefer – pioneer in the use of fibre shipping containers and one of the wealthiest men in America in 1957
* John Kluge – television industry mogul
* Klaus Kleinfeld – business executive
* William Knabe – industrialist and piano-manufacturer
* Lynne Koplitz – comedian
* James L. Kraft – first to patent processed cheese; founder of Kraft Foods
* Bernard Kroger – chain grocer founder of the Kroger chain
* Louis Kurz – major publisher of chromolithographs in the late 19th century
* Lemp Mansion, Johan Adam Lemp – father of modern brewing in St. Louis, started the William J. Lemp Brewing Company
* James E. Lentz III – president of Toyota Motor Sales, USA
* Alfred Lion – co-founder of Blue Note Recordshttps://www.npr.org/2003/07/20/1339880/blue-note-records-the-biography "It's a bit of an irony that the Blue Note label — synonymous with jazz, the seminal American music form — was created by two German immigrants. In Blue Note Records, The Biography, author Richard Cook tells the story of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, who formed the label in 1939."
* Solomon Loeb – banker, co-founder of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., of Jewish descent
* Grover Loening – aircraft manufacturer
* Henry Lomb – co-founded Bausch & Lombhttp://www.gamhof.org/famous_ga.html "Famous German-Americans"
* George Lucas – film director and producer, of part German ancestry
* William H. Luden – developer of the menthol cough drop, the first ever, Luden's Menthol Cough Drops
* Adolph Luetgert – Chicago businessman of A.L. Luetgert Sausage & Packing Company
* Peter Luger Steak House, Peter Luger – steak restaurateur
* Abby Rockefeller Mauzé – philanthropist
* Oscar Mayer – meat entrepreneur
* Frederick Louis Maytag I, Frederick L. Maytag – founder of the Maytag Company
* George W. Merck – scientist and former president of Merck & Co
* Fred G. Meyer – founder of Fred Meyer
* Maxey Dell Moody Jr. – founder of MOBRO Marine, Inc. and CEO of M. D. Moody & Sons, Inc.
* Elon Musk – co-founder of PayPal, PayPal Inc.; founder of SolarCity, SpaceX, Hyperloop, and Tesla Motors
* Carrie Marcus Neiman – co-founder of the Neiman-Marcus department store
* Douglas R. Oberhelman – former CEO and Executive Chairman of Caterpillar Inc. in Peoria, Illinois
* Adolph Ochs-Sulzberger – newspaper publisher and former owner of ''The New York Times'' and ''The Chattanooga Times'' (now the ''Chattanooga Times Free Press'')
* Hermann Oelrichs – shipping magnate and owner of Norddeutsche Lloyd Shipping
* Albrecht Pagenstecher – pioneer of the modern paper industry
* Fabian Pascal – consultant to large software vendors
* Charles Pfizer – founded the Pfizer Inc. pharmaceutical company
* John C. Pritzlaff – founder of the John Pritzlaff Hardware Company, the largest wholesale hardware store in the Midwestern United States until its closure in 1958
* Robert Propst (inventor), Robert Propst – inventor of the Action Office that evolved into the cubicle office furniture system
* John J. Raskob – builder of the Empire State Building
* Francis Joseph Reitz – banker, civic leader, and philanthropist
* John Augustus Reitz – known as the "Lumber Baron", an entrepreneur, industrialist, banker, civic leader, and philanthropist
* George Remus – famous Cincinnati lawyer and bootlegger during the Prohibition era
* Adolph Rickenbacher – created the electric guitar manufacturer, Rickenbacker, Rickenbacher Manufacturing Company
* William Rittenhouse – built the first paper mill in America
* David Rockefeller – banker, philanthropist, world statesman, and the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family
* John D. Rockefeller – oil magnate and philanthropist
* John D. Rockefeller Jr. – industrialist and philanthropist
* John D. Rockefeller III – industrialist and philanthropist
* Laurance Rockefeller – venture capitalist, financier, philanthropist and major conservationist
* John Augustus Roebling – civil engineer, one of the pioneers in the construction of suspension bridges
* Washington Roebling – civil engineer best known for his work on the Brooklyn Bridge
* Jim Rohr – chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services (PNC Bank)
* Jacob Ruppert – brewer, businessman, United States National Guard, National Guard colonel and United States Congressman, owner of New York Yankees from 1915 until 1939
* August Schell – founded The August Schell Brewing Company in 1860, the second oldest family-owned brewery in America
* Walter Schlage – engineer, inventor, and businessman; founder of Schlage Manufacturing company in San Francisco
* John Schnatter – founder of Papa John's Pizza
* Jacob Schiff – banker and philanthropist
* Julius Schmid (manufacturer), Julius Schmid – creator of the Durex, Sheik condom and the Durex, Ramses condom
* Eric Schmidt – executive chairman and former CEO of Alphabet Inc. (the parent company of Google) and a former member of the board of directors of Apple Inc., and 136th-wealthiest person in the world in 2011
* Charles M. Schwab – steel magnate (Bethlehem Steel)
* Charles R. Schwab – businessman and investor; founder of the Charles Schwab Corporation
* Steve Schwarzman – private equity mogul, financier and founder of Blackstone Group
* Frank Seiberling – inventor and founder of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, Seiberling Rubber Company, Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens
* Frank Seiberling, John Seiberling – founder and inventor of one of the first reaping machines
* Isaac Singer – inventor, actor, and sewing machine entrepreneur
* Evan Spiegel – Internet entrepreneur; co-founder and CEO of the mobile application Snapchat
* Spiegel (catalog), Joseph Spiegel – founder of Spiegel catalog
* Claus Spreckels – industrialist
* George Steinbrenner – shipping and sports franchise entrepreneur and late owner of the New York Yankees
* Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg – Steinway pianos manufacturer
* Henry William Stiegel – glassmaker and ironmaster and an active lay Lutheran and associate of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg
* Chris Strachwitz – founder and president of Arhoolie Records
* Levi Strauss – creator of the first company to manufacture blue jeans; of German-Jewish descent
* Clement Studebaker – founded Studebaker, a wagon, carriage and car manufacturer
* Arthur Hays Sulzberger – publisher of ''The New York Times'', 1935–1961http://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans.htm "The roll call of German-American leaders in business and finance includes names like Astor, Boeing, Chrysler, Firestone, Fleischman, Guggenheim, Heinz, Hershey, Kaiser, Rockefeller, Steinway, Strauss (of-blue jeans fame), Singer (originally Reisinger), Sulzberger, Wanamaker, and Weyerhaueser."
* John Sutter – pioneer settler/colonizer
* Peter Thiel – co-founder of PayPal, PayPal Inc.; first outside investor in Facebook, Inc.
* Otto Timm – aircraft manufacturer
* Robert Uihlein Jr. – heir, businessman, polo player and philanthropistMike Reilly
Uihlein Family History (The Milwaukee Brewing Family)
, Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society, Inc., 1/17/00
* Utz Quality Foods, Inc., William Utz – snack food entrepreneur
* Frederick Vogel – Tanning (leather), tanner and businessman from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who spent a single one-year term as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly
* Charles Von der Ahe – co-founder of the Vons Supermarket chain
* Wilfred Von der Ahe – co-founder of the Vons Supermarket chain
* Warburg family, The Warburg Family – bankers, of Jewish descent
* John Wanamaker – founder of Wanamaker's department store
* George Westinghouse – engineer and electricity pioneer
* Oscar Werwath – founder and first president of the Milwaukee School of Engineering in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Friedrich Weyerhäuser – timber mogul and founder of the Weyerhaeuser Company, Weyerhaeuser
* Francis Wolff – co-founder of Blue Note Records
* Wurlitzer, Rudolph Wurlitzer – musical instrument entrepreneur
* William Zeckendorf – real estate developer
* Frederick G. Zinsser – American chemical company entrepreneur who founded Zinsser & Company, which synthesized organic chemicals.

Brewers

* Eberhard Anheuser – soap and candle maker, president and CEO of Eberhard Anheuser and Company, which eventually became Anheuser-Busch
* Valentin Blatz – beer baron, started the Valentin Blatz Brewing Company
* Adolphus Busch – Anheuser-Busch brewing company founder
* Adolphus Busch III – brewing magnate who was the President and CEO of Anheuser-Busch, 1934–1946
* August Anheuser Busch Sr. – brewing magnate who served as the President and CEO of Anheuser-Busch, 1913–1934
* August Busch IV – president and CEO of Anheuser-Busch
* Gussie Busch – brewing magnate who built the Anheuser-Busch Companies into the largest brewery in the world as company chairman, 1946–1975, and became a prominent sportsman as owner of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise in MLB
* Adolph Coors – Coors Brewing Company, Coors beer empire founder
* Haffen Brewing Company, Matthias Haffen – New York City brewer, formerly located at the Haffen Building in the BronxJohn M. Haffen
The Bronx and its people A History 1609–1927 Board of Editors: James L. Wells, Louis F. Haffen Josiah A. Briggs. Historian: Benedict Fitspatrick Publisher: The Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc. New York 1927
* Theodore Hamm – founder of Hamm's Brewery
* Frederick Miller – Miller beer creator
* Frederick Pabst – founder of Pabst Brewery (with Philip Best)
* Penn Brewery, Tom Pastorius – founded Penn Brewery (Pennsylvania Brewing Co.)
* Schaefer Beer, Frederick Schaefer – beer baron, started Schaefer Beer, F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company
* Joseph Schlitz – beer baron, founded Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company
* Spoetzl Brewery, Kosmas Spoetzl – brewer, Shiner Brewery
* Straub Brewery, Peter P. Straub – founder of Straub Brewery
* August Uihlein – Uhrig Brewery and Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company brewer, business executive and horse breeder
* Herman Weiss – first brewmaster in Shiner, Texas; hired in 1909 by the Spoetzl Brewery, Shiner Brewing Association to start the brewery; later took the same position at the San Antonio Brewing Association

Distillers

* Arthur Phillip Stitzel – founder of the Stitzel–Weller Distillery, which has produced a number of notable brands, and as of 2017 houses the welcome center and public tour for Bulleit Bourbon, as part of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Entertainment

Actors

* Jensen Ackles – actor
* Gideon Adlon – actress
* Ben Affleck – actor and filmmaker
* Casey Affleck – actor and director
* Eddie Albert (born Edward Albert Heimberger) – Academy Award- and Primetime Emmy Award-nominated American stage, film, character actor, gardener, humanitarian activist, and World War II hero
* Tim Allen – actor and comedian
* Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg) – filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian, and musician, of Jewish descent
* Mädchen Amick – actress
* Fred Armisen
* Fred Astaire – dancer, singer, actor, choreographer, and television presenter
* Odessa A'zion – actress
* Catherine Bach – actress
* Diedrich Bader – actor
* Haley Bennett – actress
* Hailey Baldwin – actress
* John Banner – actor
* Earl W. Bascom – film actor
* Kim Basinger – actress, small amount of German ancestry
* Brian Baumgartner – actor
* Stephanie Beatriz – actress
* Kristen Bell – actress
* Zazie Beetz – actress
* Candice Bergen – actress; mother Frances Bergen was of German descent
* Frances Bergen (née Westerman) – maternal grandparents of German descent
* Ingrid Bergman – actress; mother was an immigrant from Germany
* Halle Berry – actress
* Carl Betz – actor and World War II veteran
* Michael Biehn – actor
* Jessica Biel – actress, small amount of German ancestry, also of Jewish descent
* Karen Black – actress
* Curt Bois – actor
* Johnny Yong Bosch – actor, of partial paternal German descent
* Julie Bowen – actress, of part German ancestry
* Eric Braeden – actor
* Marlon Brando – actor; father was of partial German ancestry
* Benjamin Bratt – actor; father is of mostly German ancestry
* Hermann Braun – actor
* Felix Bressart – actor
* Agnes Bruckner – actress, of part German descent
* Sandra Bullock – actress; mother was an immigrant from Germany, father had some German ancestry
* Ty Burrell – actor
* Scott Caan – actor
* Nicolas Cage – actor
* Nancy Cartwright
* Dana Carvey – actor, comedian, and producer
* Loan Chabanol – actress
* Sarah Chalke – actress; mother is an immigrant from Germany
* Carol Channing – actor, of 3/4 German and 1/4 African-American ancestry
* Claudia Christian – actress; mother is a German immigrant
* Mae Clarke (born Violet Mary Klotz) – actress
* Montgomery Clift – actor
* George Clooney – actor, director, producer, screenwriter, activist, businessman, and philanthropist
* Kevin Costner – actor, of part German descent
* Tom Cruise – actor; parents both of part German ancestry
* Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz) – actor, German Jewish descent
* Willem Dafoe – actor
* Josh Dallas - actor
* Helmut Dantine – actor
* Doris Day – actress, singer
* Robert De Niro – actor; mother was of half German descent
* James Dean – actor, small amount of German ancestry
* Johnny Depp – actor, small amount of German ancestry
* Cameron Diaz – actress; mother of German descent
* Leonardo DiCaprio – actor, paternal grandmother was of German descent, and mother is an immigrant from Germany
* Angie Dickinson – actress
* Vin Diesel – actor; mother of part German ancestry
* Marlene Dietrich – actress; an immigrant from Germany
* Peter Dinklage – Primetime Emmy Award-winning actor, of part German descent
* Adam Driver – actor
* Patty Duke – actress; mother of Mackenzie Astin and Sean Astin; she's of one quarter German descent
* Kirsten Dunst – film actress and former model; German father, and maternal grandfather of German descent
* Aaron Eckhart – actor; father is of German ancestry, mother also has some German roots
* Zac Efron – actor, of part German descent
* Nicole Eggert – actress; father is a German immigrant
* Erika Eleniak – actress; mother is of Estonian and German ancestry
* Noah Emmerich – actor; father a German Jewish immigrant, mother of Eastern European Jewish descent
* Chris Evans (actor), Chris Evans – actor; father of half German ancestry
* Dakota Fanning – actress, of part German descent
* Elle Fanning – actress; younger sister of Dakota Fanning, of part German descent
* Tina Fey – writer, comedian, and Primetime Emmy Award-winning actress; father is of half German ancestry
* William Fichtner – actor
* Jenna Fischer – actress
* Carrie Fisher – actress, of part German descent
* Jodie Foster – actress; mother is of part German ancestry
* Dennis Franz (born Dennis Franz Schlachta) – award-winning actor; father was a German immigrant, mother was of German descent
* Brendan Fraser – actor
* Tatiana von Fürstenberg – rock singer and filmmaker; daughter of fashion designers Diane and Prince Egon von Fürstenberg
* James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner) – actor; father is of German descent
* Clark Gable – actor
* Janet Gaynor – actress
* Mitzi Gaynor (born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber) – actress, singer, and dancer
* Lillian Gish – actress
* Summer Glau – actress, of part German descent
* Karl Glusman – actor
* Crispin Glover – actor
* Betty Grable – actress, dancer, and singer
* Joel Gretsch – actor
* Andy Griffith – actor, of part German descent
* Harry Groener – three-time Tony Award nominee
* Lukas Haas – actor; father is a German immigrant
* Gene Hackman – actor; part German
* Thomas J. Hageboeck (1945–1996) – actor
* Uta Hagen – actress, an immigrant from Germany
* Jon Hamm – actor
* Chelsea Handler – comedian and actress; mother was German
* Daryl Hannah – actress
* Melora Hardin – actress and singer
* Mariska Hargitay – actress; mother is of half German descent
* Woody Harrelson – actor
* Cecilia Hart – television and stage actress, of Belgian, Cornish, Dutch, English, French-Canadian, German, Irish, Italian, Norwegian and Scottish descent.
* David Hasselhoff – actor, of one quarter German descent
* Anne Hathaway – actress, small amount of German ancestry
* Cole Hauser – film and television actor; father of part German descent
* Dwight Hauser – actor and film producer, of part German descent
* Wings Hauser – actor, director and film writer, of part German descent
* James Haven – actor, of part German descent
* Rita Hayworth – actress and dancer, of part German descent
* Bill Heck – actor
* Eileen Heckart – actress
* Katherine Heigl – actress, of mostly German descent
* Tricia Helfer
* Marg Helgenberger – actress, of mostly German descent
* Paul Henreid (born Paul Georg Julius Hernried Freiherr von Wassel-Waldingau)
* Richard Henzel – film, TV, and voice-over actor
* Edward Herrmann – television and film actor, of part German descent
* J. G. Hertzler – actor, author, screenwriter best known for his role on ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' as the Klingon General officer, General (later Chancellor) Martok
* Emile Hirsch – actor
* Katie Holmes – actress, of part German ancestry
* Sofia Hublitz – actress
* Adam Huber - actor
* Rock Hudson – actor, of half German/Swiss-German descent
* Tab Hunter – film actor and singer, father was a German-Jewish immigrant, mother a German Lutheran immigrant
* Josh Hutcherson – actor
* Martha Hyer – Academy Award-nominated actress
* Gillian Jacobs – film, theater and television actress, of part German descent
* Emil Jannings – first actor to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor
* Van Johnson – film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II, of part German descent
* Angelina Jolie (born Angelina Jolie Voight) – actress, of part German descent
* James Earl Jones – actor, of African American, Native American, English, French Huguenot, German, Irish, Scotch-Irish, Scottish, Swedish and Welsh descent.
* Leatrice Joy (born Leatrice Joy Zeidler) – silent film era actress
* Victoria Justice – actress; father of part German descent
* Vincent Kartheiser – actor
* Grace Kelly – actress; mother was of German ancestry
* Ellie Kemper – actress and comedian
* Nicole Kidman - actress, distant German ancestry
* Richard Kiel – actor
* Q'orianka Kilcher – actress and singer, of part Swiss-German descent
* Val Kilmer – actor
* Angela Kinsey – actress, of part German descent
* Chris Klein (actor), Chris Klein – actor, both parents of part German descent
* Werner Klemperer – actor
* Kevin Kline – actor; father was of German Jewish descent
* Johnny Knoxville – actor
* Boris Kodjoe – actor; mother of German and German-Jewish descent
* David Koechner – actor, comedian, and musician, of part German descent
* Lynne Koplitz – actor and comedian
* Fran Kranz – actor, of part German descent
* Kurt Kreuger – actor
* Diane Kruger – actress
* Mickey Kuhn – actor
* Ashton Kutcher – actor
* Cheryl Ladd – actress and model, of part German descent
* Veronica Lake – actress and pin-up model
* Jessica Lange – actress, paternal grandfather was of German descent
* Wesley Lau – film and television actor
* Cyndi Lauper – singer, actress, of part German descent
* Ed Lauter – actor, of part German descent
* Taylor Lautner – actor/martial artist, of part German descent
* Jennifer Lawrence – actress, of part German descent
* Bruce Lee – actor; father of Brandon Lee and Shannon Lee; Bruce's mother was of Chinese and German ancestry
* Janine Lindemulder – exotic dancer and adult film actress
* Kay Lenz – Emmy Award-winning actress
* Clara Lipman – actress and playwright; sister of Lieder singer Mattie Lipman Marum
* Blake Lively – actress, of part German descent
* Kristanna Loken – actress
* Carole Lombard – actress
* Julia Louis-Dreyfus – actress (''Veep'', ''Seinfeld'', and ''The New Adventures of Old Christine''); partly of German descent
* Chad Lowe – actor and director
* Rob Lowe – actor
* Kellan Lutz – fashion model and actor for television and films; of mostly German descent
* Matilda Lutz – actress
* Chloë Grace Moretz – actress
* Kaitlyn Maher – actress and singer
* John Malkovich – actor, of part German ancestry on his mother's side
* Jayne Mansfield – actress
* William Mapother – actor; Tom Cruise's cousin, of part German descent
* Marx Brothers – actors, of German Jewish descent
* Matthew McConaughey – actor, of part German descent
* Mia Malkova – pornographic actress, of part German descent
* Candice Michelle – model, actress, WWE wrestler
* Wentworth Miller – actor; father of part German descent
* Jason Momoa – actor; mother of part German descent
* Michelle Monaghan – actress
* Barbara Nichols – actress
* Jack Nicholson – actor and filmmaker
* Nick Nolte – actor, of part German descent
* Bob Odenkirk – actor
* Chris O'Donnell – actor who played Robin (character), Robin in two Batman films; mother is of part German ancestry
* Nick Offerman – actor and comedian
* Heather O'Rourke – child actress, of part German descent
* Chord Overstreet – of part German descent
* Jared Padalecki – actor, mother was part German
* Lilli Palmer (born Lillie Marie Peiser) – actress, German Jewish
* Gwyneth Paltrow – actress; daughter of Blythe Danner, who is of mostly German descent, also of Jewish descent
* Sarah Jessica Parker – actress; mother of mostly German descent, father of partial Jewish descent
* Penny Pax – adult film actress
* Gregory Peck – actor
* Evan Peters – actor, his parents both have German ancestry
* William Petersen – actor and producer, of mostly German descent
* Michelle Pfeiffer – actress; father was of half German ancestry
* Joaquin Phoenix – actor, father had part German ancestry
* Brad Pitt – actor, of part German descent, and fluent in the German language
* Amy Poehler – actress, comedian, producer and writer, of 1/8th German descent
* Erich Pommer – actor and film producer
* Chris Pratt – actor, of part German descent, and has limited proficiency in the German language
* Laura Prepon – actress; mother is part German
* Freddie Prinze Jr. – actor
* Jürgen Prochnow – actor
* George Raft (born George Ranft) – actor; father was an immigrant from Germany and mother was of German descent
* Luise Rainer – actress, Jewish immigrant from Germany
* John Ratzenberger – actor with part German American father
* Donna Reed – actress, of part German descent
* Frank Reicher – German-born American actor, director and producer
* Jeremy Renner – actor and musician, father is of part German ancestry
* Denise Richards – actress
* Molly Ringwald – actress
* Naya Rivera – actress and singer (a quarter German descent)
* Julia Roberts – actress and producer
* Isabella Rossellini – actress, daughter of Ingrid Bergman; maternal grandmother was German
* Andrew Rothenberg – television actor
* Mercedes Ruehl – theater, television and film actor; father was of part German descent
* Katee Sackhoff – actress, of part German descent
* William Sadler (actor), William Sadler – film and television actor
* Roy Scheider – actor; father was of German descent
* August Schellenberg – actor
* Kendall Schmidt – actor and singer – well known for his part in ''Big Time Rush''
* Danielle Schneider – actress, comedian, and writer
* Helen Schneider – actress and singer
* John Schneider (screen actor), John Schneider – actor and singer
* Liev Schreiber – actor
* Pablo Schreiber – actor
* Ricky Schroder – actor and film director
* Carly Schroeder – actress and model
* Brooke Shields – actress with distant German ancestors
* Tom Selleck – actor
* Amanda Seyfried – actress, of heavily German descent
* Sherri Saum – actress with German mother
* Elke Sommer – actress
* Josef Sommer – actor, immigrant from Germany
* Shannyn Sossamon – actress, dancer, model, and musician, of part German descent
* Nick Stahl – actor, of part German descent
* Frances Sternhagen – actress
* Emma Stone – actress, of part German descent
* Michael Strahan – retired football player, actor, and television personality; lived in Germany
* Meryl Streep – actress; father was of German/Swiss-German descent, mother was of part German ancestry
* Ethan Stiefel – dancer, choreographer, and director
* Jeremy Sumpter – actor, of part German descent
* Carl Switzer – "Alfalfa", actor, professional dog breeder and hunting guide
* Ralph Taeger – actor
* Channing Tatum – actor, distant German ancestry
* Shirley Temple – actress, part German
* Alexis Texas – pornographic actress
* Charlize Theron – actress; mother has German ancestry
* Jonathan Taylor Thomas (born Jonathan Taylor Weiss) – actor, best known for ''Home Improvement (TV series), Home Improvement''
* Uma Thurman – actress; mother is model Nena von Schlebrügge, of half German descent
* Rip Torn – actor and voice actor
* Liv Tyler – actress, of part German descent
* Alida Valli (Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg) – actress
* Mario Van Peebles – actor and director; mother is German
* Mike Vogel – actor
* Jon Voight – actor; maternal grandparents were immigrants from Germany
* Erik von Detten – actor; father is German
* Jenna von Oÿ – actress and singer
* Christopher Walken – actor; father was an immigrant from Germany
* Paul Walker – actor, of part German descent
* Erin Wasson – actress and model
* Johnny Weissmuller – Olympic swimmer, actor, best known as Tarzan
* Lois Weber – silent film actress, screenwriter, producer, and director. She is identified in some historical references as "the most important female director the American film industry has known"
* George Wendt – actor, of part German descent
* Frank Welker – actor
* Mae West – actress, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol; mother was an immigrant from Germany
* Vera-Ellen Westmeier Rohe – actress and dancer
* Bruce Willis – actor; mother was German
* Henry Winkler – actor, comedian, director, producer, and author (parents were German Jews)
* Frank Wolff (actor), Frank Wolff – actor
* Elijah Wood – actor; father of half German descent; mother has one quarter German ancestry
* Kari Wuhrer – actress and singer, of part German descent
* Wolfgang Zilzer – actor
* Zendaya – (born Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman) actress; mother of German descent

Celebrities

* Glenn Beck – political commentator
* Benjamin C. Bradlee (1921-2014) – editor-in-chief of the ''Washington Post'' during the Watergate scandal; maternal great-grandfather was Dr. Ernst Bruno von Gersdorff
* Samantha Brown (born 1970) – television host of several Travel Channel programs
* Pat Buchanan – political commentator
* Kristin Cavallari – television personality, fashion designer, and actress
* Katie Couric – television and online journalist, presenter, producer, and author; mother and maternal grandparents were Jewish German
* Walter Cronkite – broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981)
* Jeanne Dixon – born Lydia Emma Pinckert, astrologer and self-proclaimed psychic, columnist"Jean Dixon Psychic and Astrologer Whose Predictions Were Read by Millions", ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', January 27, 1997.
* Siegfried Fischbacher – magician
* Willie Geist – television personality, journalist and humorist
* Nicky Hilton – businesswoman, socialite, model, member of the former Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotel owners family
* Paris Hilton – businesswoman, socialite, model, member of the former Hilton Hotel owners family
* James Holzhauer (born 1984) – game show contestant and professional sports gambler, he is the fourth highest-earning American game show contestant of all time and is best known for his record-setting 2019 run as champion on the quiz show Jeopardy!
* Roy Horn – magician
* Kris Jenner – socialite
* Kendall Jenner – socialite and model
* Kylie Jenner – socialite, model, media personality, businesswoman, and billionaire from Kylie Cosmetics
* Alex Jones – conspiracy theorist
* Khloe Kardashian – socialite and model
* Kourtney Kardashian – socialite and model
* Kim Kardashian – television personality, socialite, actress, businesswoman, and model
* Megyn Kelly – journalist, attorney, talk show host
* Jimmy Kimmel – comedian, writer, late night talk show host, game show host, and producer
* Tomi Lahren – political commentator
* Alicia Menendez – television journalist
* Bridget Marquardt – model and TV personality (maiden name Sandmeier), reality TV star
* Jenny McCarthy – model, author, activist, actress, Playboy Playmate of the Year, and television personality
* Keith Olbermann – news anchor, sports and political commentator, and radio sportscaster
* Jeff Probst – Primetime Emmy Award-winning host, game show host, and executive producer
* Brad Rutter – game show contestant, TV host, producer, and actor; highest-earning American game show contestant of all time and the highest-earning contestant on the U.S. syndicated game show ''Jeopardy!''
* Judy Sheindlin – television personality, television producer, author, former prosecutor and family court judge
* Stassi Schroeder – television personality, podcast host, author, fashion blogger, and model
* Ed Schultz – television and radio host, liberal political commentator, former sports broadcaster
* Jerry Springer – television personality of German-Jewish descent, journalist, comedian
* Ruth Westheimer (born 1928) – known as "Dr. Ruth," sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor, Holocaust survivor, and former Haganah sniper.

Composers and musicians

* George Antheil – avant-garde composer, pianist, author, and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the modern sounds – musical, industrial, mechanical – of the early 20th century
* Bibi Bourelly - singer
* Andy Biersack — lead singer of Black Veil Brides
* Tre Cool – punk rocker (born in Frankfurt, West Germany)
* Bix Beiderbecke – jazz cornet player and a classical and jazz pianist
* Jon Bon Jovi – singer and musician
* Eva Cassidy – singer
* J. Cole - rapper, songwriter, record producer
* Miley Cyrus – singer, songwriter, and actress
* Patrick Dahlheimer – bassist for the band Live (band), Live
* Walter Johannes Damrosch – conductor
* John Denver (born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.) – musician
* Edsel Dope (born Brian Ebejer) – lead singer of Dope (band), Dope
* Dave Dudley – (born David Darwin Pedruska) – country music singer
* David Ellefson – co-founder of thrash metal band Megadeth
* Eminem – rapper and actor
* Nancy Faust - former stadium Organ (music), organist for Major League Baseball's Chicago White Sox
* Lukas Foss – conductor
* Chris Frantz – musician and record producer; the drummer for both Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club
* Norman Frauenheim – acclaimed pianist and music teacher
* Ace Frehley – band member of Kiss (band), Kiss
* Hugo Friedhofer – film music composer
* Louis F. Gottschalk – composer
* Dave Grohl – musician
* Hilary Hahn - violinist
* Daryl Hall – born Daryl Hohl, rock, Rhythm and blues, R&B, and Soul music, soul singer; keyboardist, guitarist, songwriter, and producer, best known as the co-founder and principal lead vocalist of Hall & Oates (with guitarist and songwriter John Oates)
* Jeff Hanneman – guitarist of Slayer
* Reinhold Heil – film and television composer
* Okeh Records, Otto K. E. Heinemann – manager for the U.S. branch of German-owned Odeon Records
* James Hetfield – vocalist, rhythm guitarist and co-founder of Metallica
* Bertie Higgins, Elbert Joseph Higgins – songwriter
* Paul Hindemith – composer, violinist and teacher
* Hanya Holm – choreographer
* Horst P. Horst – photographer
* Terry Kath – first guitarist of the rock band Chicago (band), Chicago, 1966–1978; German mother
* Josh Kaufman – singer-songwriter and The Voice (American season 6), season six winner of NBC's ''The Voice (American TV series), The Voice''
* John Kay (musician), John Kay (born Joachim Fritz Krauledat) - rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist known as the frontman of Steppenwolf (band), Steppenwolf
* John Kiffmeyer – first drummer of the punk rock band Green Day
* Otto Klemperer – conductor
* Alison Krauss – bluegrass-country singer, songwriter, and musician
* Nick Lachey – pop singer
* Armando Lichtenberger Jr. – Member of musical band La Mafia
* Charles Martin Loeffler – composer
* Courtney Love – actress and frontwoman of Hole (band), Hole
* Marilyn Manson – front man of rock band Marilyn Manson; father is of German descent
* Martina McBride – née Schiff, country music singer-songwriter and record producer
* Melissa Auf der Maur – rock singer
* Alyson Michalka – actress, singer-songwriter, and guitarist
* Amanda Michalka – actress, singer-songwriter, and guitarist
* Sanford A. Moeller – rudimental drummer, national champion, educator, author and Spanish–American War veteran
* Tomo in der Mühlen – producer and guitar player, known for work with Harold Perrineau, Masta Ace, Styles P, and Ekatarina Velika
* Dave Mustaine – co-founder of thrash metal band Megadeth and first lead guitarist for thrash metal band Metallica
* James Pankow – trombone player for the rock band Chicago (band), Chicago
* Jaco Pastorius – musician and songwriter widely acknowledged for his virtuosity with the Bass guitar#Fretted and fretless basses, fretless bass
* Jaan Patterson – founder of the Surrism-Phonoethics label, also known as Undress Béton
* Les Paul (born Lester William Polsfuss) – jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor
* Katy Perry – singer and songwriter; English, German, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry
* Pink (singer), Pink (Alecia Beth Moore) – singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress
* Jimmy Pop – musician, composer, comedian and lead singer of the Bloodhound Gang
* Elvis Presley – singer, songwriter, and actor
* Dee Dee Ramone – bassist for the Ramones
* Trent Reznor – musician, film score composer and founder of Nine Inch Nails
* Heinz Eric Roemheld – composer; won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' in 1943
* Linda Ronstadt – singer and songwriter
* Dieter Ruehle - stadium organist for Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers and National Hockey League's Los Angeles Kings.
* Nate Ruess – singer-songwriter and musician, best known as the lead vocalist of indie rock band Fun (band), Fun
* Felix Salten – composed scores for some 150 Hollywood movies
* Arnold Schoenberg – expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School
* Wesley Schultz – guitarist and lead vocalist for the American folk rock band The Lumineers
* Pete Seeger – folk singer
* John Philip Sousa – composer and conductor of the late Romanticism, Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches
* James Shaffer – co-founder and guitarist of the nu metal band Korn
* Paul Stanley – musician from the band KISS, of Jewish descent, his mother was born in Berlin
* Frederick Stock – composer and conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
* Mark Stoermer – musician, producer and singer-songwriter; bassist for alternative rock band the Killers
* Joel Stroetzel – guitarist from the metalcore band Killswitch Engage
* Taylor Swift – singer-songwriter
* Lil Peep († 2017) – rapper, singer and songwriter; mother was of German descent
* Machine Gun Kelly (musician), Machine Gun Kelly – rapper, singer and actor
* Theodore Thomas (conductor), Theodore Thomas – conductor
* Obie Trice – rapper
* Steven Tyler – lead singer of Aerosmith
* Eddie Vedder – lead vocalist of Pearl Jam
* Kurt Weill – composer
* Lawrence Welk – bandleader
* Pete Wentz – bassist for Fall Out Boyhttp://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=wentz "German: from a pet form of the personal name Werner, or, especially in eastern regions, from a short form of the Slavic personal name Wenceslaw."
* Hans Zimmer – Academy Award-winning film composer, German immigrant
* Wolfgang Zuckermann – harpsichord maker and writer

Directors, producers, screenwriters, and film editors

* Michael Ballhaus – Cinematographer
* Gesine Bullock-Prado – pastry chef, TV personality, author, attorney, and former film executive
* Frank Dexter (1882–1965) – German-born American art director
* Roy O. Disney – entertainment industry executive
* Roland Emmerich – Hollywood film director; born in Stuttgart
* Paul Feig – actor and director, of Jewish descent; parents converted to Christian Science
* Steven Fischer – producer and director; two-time Primetime Emmy Award nominee
* Ray Harryhausen – visual effects creator, writer, and producer
* Carl Laemmle – pioneer in American filmmaking and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios, of Jewish descent
* Ernst Lubitsch – acclaimed film director, special Academy Award winner
* Anthony Mann – film director and actor
* Richard C. Meyer – German-American television and film editor
* Russ Meyer – director and photographer
* F. W. Murnau – film director of the silent film, silent era
* Seymour Nebenzahl – film producer, of Jewish descent
* Kurt Neumann (director), Kurt Neumann – Hollywood film director who specialized in science fiction
* Mike Nichols – Academy Award-winning film director, writer and producer
* Arch Oboler – scriptwriter, novelist, producer and director who was active in films, radio and television
* Wolfgang Petersen – director
* Wally Pfister – Academy Award-nominated American cinematographer
* Kelly Reichardt – screenwriter and film director working within American indie cinema
* Gottfried Reinhardt – producer and director
* Ringling brothers – circus owners
* Victor Schertzinger – composer, film director, film producer, and screenwriter
* Eugen Schüfftan – cinematographer and inventor
* Nev Schulman – producer, actor, and photographer
* Reinhold Schünzel – director and actor
* Robert Siodmak – director
* Wim Wenders – film director
* William Wyler – film director
* Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. – Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the ''Ziegfeld Follies''

Humorists

* Michael Ian Black (born Michael Ian Schwartz) – comedian, actor, writer, and director
* David Letterman – late-night talk show host and comedian and the host of CBS's ''Late Show with David Letterman''
* Daniel Tosh – comedian, host of Comedy Central's ''Tosh.0''

Models

* Wilhelmina Cooper – model who began with Ford Models, and at the peak of her success, founded her own agency, Wilhelmina Models
* Cindy Crawford – model
* Rande Gerber – male model and entrepreneur
* Karlie Kloss – fashion model and entrepreneur
* Heidi Klum – model
* Nicole Brown Simpson – model
* Nena von Schlebrügge – former fashion model in the 1950s and 1960s; of German and Swedish descent; mother of actress Uma Thurman

First Ladies of the United States

(in order by their husband's presidency)
* Lucretia Garfield
* Florence Harding
* Pat Nixon

Historical figures

* Buzz Aldrin – astronaut, first human to speak on the Moon
* Harry J. Anslinger – United States government official who served as the first commissioner of the United States Department of the Treasury's Federal Bureau of Narcotics, supporter of prohibition and the criminalization of drugs, and played a pivotal role in cannabis prohibition
* Neil Armstrong – astronaut, first human to set foot on the Moon
* George Atzerodt – assassin, conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
* Meta Schlichting Berger – socialist organizer
* Laura Bullion (1876–1961) – female American frontier, Old West outlaw
* Warren E. Burger (1907–1995) – Chief Justice of the United States, 1969–1986https://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/97/background "Ethnicity Swiss/German"
* Harold Hitz Burton – politician and lawyer, served as the 45th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, as a U.S. senator from Ohio, and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
* Willard Erastus Christianson aka Matt Warner – Old West outlaw, deputy sheriff
* John Dillinger – bank robber in the Depression
* Dr. Carl Adolph Douai – educational reformer, abolitionist, newspaper editor, and labor leader
* Amelia Earhart – aviation pioneer and author, the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States), Distinguished Flying Cross
* Friedrich Diercks, Johann Friedrich Ernst – "Father of German Immigration to Texas", arriving in 1831
* Bobby Fischer – chess prodigy, grandmaster, and the eleventh World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion
* Henry Francis Fisher – German Texan in Houston, Texas, where he was consul for the Hanseatic League, became acting treasurer of the San Saba Company
* Gerhard Gesell – United States federal judge
* Meyer Guggenheim (1828–1905) – statesman, patriarch of what became known as the Guggenheim family
* Frank Gusenburg – gangster and a victim of the Saint Valentine's Day massacre in Chicagohttp://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id29.htm "Peter Gusenberg (Gusenberger) 'Goosey'. 434 Roscoe St. Born September 28, 1888 in Chicago, Illinois. Married to Myrtle Coppleman Gorman. He tells her he is salesman and uses the last name Gorman. His father was named Peter Gusenberg also. He was from Germany."
* Peter Gusenberg – member of Chicago's North Side Gang, the main rival to the Chicago Outfit
* Bruno Hauptmann – Lindbergh kidnapper
* Alfons Heck – writer and former Hitler Youth
* Friedrich Hecker – revolutionary
* Michael Hillegas – first Treasurer of the United States
* Alger Hiss – American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s, original surname of "Hesse"
* Jimmy Hoffa – labor union leader and author
* J. Edgar Hoover – first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
* Lena Kleinschmidt – jewel thief
* Fritz Julius Kuhn, Fritz Kuhn – German American Bund leader
* Maria Kraus-Boelté – pioneer of Friedrich Fröbel, Fröbel education in the United States, and helped promote kindergarten training as suitable for study at university level
* Herman Lamm – considered the "father of modern bank robbery"
* John Lederer, Johann Lederer – explorer
* Jacob Leisler – colonist
* Frank J. Loesch – law enforcement official, reformer and a founder of the Chicago Crime Commission
* Kurt Frederick Ludwig – head of the "Joe K" spy ring in the United States in 1940–41
* Paul Machemehl – German-Texan, rancher and civic leader
* Fredericka Mandelbaum – entrepreneur and criminal
* Nicola Marschall – designer of the first national flag and uniform of the Confederacy
* Christene Mayer – aka "Kid Glove Rosey", famous thief and associate of "Black" Lena Kleinschmidt
* Benjamin Miller Collection, Benjamin Kurtz Miller – philanthropist
* Burchard Miller – Texas land pioneer
* Peter Minuit – Director-General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland
* Charles Mohr (botanist), Charles Mohr – pharmacist
* Pat Nixon – former First Lady of the United States
* Duncan Niederauer – CEO of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
* Madge Oberholtzer – schoolteacher who worked for the state of Indiana on adult literacy
* Bonnie Parker – outlaw, robber, and criminal
* Franz Daniel Pastorius – pioneer and founder of Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Germantown, Pennsylvania
* Molly Pitcher (born Mary Ludwig) – American Revolutionary War hero
* Robert Prager – Illinois coal miner lynched during World War I because of anti-German sentiment
* Hermann Raster – Chicago politician, editor, and abolitionist
* Charles Reiser – safecracker
* William Addams Reitwiesner – genealogist who traced the ancestry of United States political figures, European royalty and celebrities
* Walter Reuther – labor leader
* Rockefeller family – industrial and political family that made one of the world's largest fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
* Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. – historian, social criticism, social critic, and Intellectual#Public intellectual, public intellectual
* August Schrader – engineer and mechanic
* Carl Schurz – politician, newspaper editor, Civil War general
* Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. – Lindbergh kidnapping investigator
* Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Flegenheimer) – New York City-area gangster
* Margarethe Schurz – established the kindergarten system in the United States
* Frank Schweihs, Frank "The German" Schweihs – alleged hitman who had been known to work for Chicago Outfit, The Outfit, the organized crime family in Chicago
* Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels – "Texas-Carl" was an Austro-Hungarian Lieutenant General and founder of the town New Braunfels, Texas
* Jacob Sternberger – historian and one of the original Forty-Eighters
* Ida Straus – victim of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, RMS ''Titanic''
* Isidor Straus – former co-owner of Macy's and victim of the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic''
* Harry Strauss, Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss – prolific contract killer for Murder, Inc.
* Chesley Sullenberger – commercial airline pilot, safety expert, and accident investigator; piloted US Airways Flight 1549 to a safe ditching in the Hudson River in New York City
* John Sutter – settler/colonizer
* Jack Swigert – NASA astronaut, one of the 24 persons who have flown to the Moon
* Count Ludwig Joseph von Boos-Waldeck – German Nobility, noble descended from a line of Electoral Rhenish Circle, Rhenish Knights and nobles dating back to the 13th century, organized the Adelsverein, to promote German emigration to Texas
* Andrew Von Etter – Boston mobster
* Paul Warburg – banker
* Louis J. Weichmann – chief witnesses for the prosecution in the conspiracy trial of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
* Conrad Weiser – pioneer, farmer, monk, tanner, judge, soldier, interpreter and diplomat between the Province of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Colony and Native Americans
* Lewis Wetzel – frontiersman and Indian fighter
* Gus Winkler – St. Louis mobster
* Adam Worth – gentleman criminal
* Joe Wurzelbacher – employee of Newell Plumbing & Heating, "the most famous plumber in the nation", rose to national attention when he was mentioned by Republican United States Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Barack Obama at least 23 times, during the third and final presidential debate on October 15, 2008
* John Peter Zenger – printer, publisher, editor and journalist in New York City
* David Ziegler – first mayor of Cincinnati; Revolutionary War Veteran and aide to president George Washington

Military

* Rosemarie Aquilina – Judge, Michigan Army National Guardswoman, Michigan's first female member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps
* Otto Boehler – United States Army private awarded the Medal of Honor for actions during the Moro Rebellion during the Philippine–American War
* Heros von Borcke, Johann August Heinrich Heros von Borcke – Major in the Confederate army
* George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876) – United States Army cavalry commander, p. 15., p. 352.
* Thomas Custer – United States Army officer and two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor for bravery during the American Civil War; a younger brother of George Armstrong Custer, perishing with him at Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory
* Konrad Dannenberg – rocket pioneer and member of the Peenemünde Army Research Center, German Rocket Team, brought to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip
* Dieter Dengler – German born United States Navy Naval aviator during the Vietnam War
* Hubert Dilger – decorated artillerist in the Union Army during the American Civil War
* Walter Dornberger – leader of Germany's V-2 rocket program and other projects at the Peenemünde Army Research Center, brought to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip
* Johann de Kalb – Major General in the American Revolution
* Frank Finkel – claimed to be the only white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn
* Alfred Gruenther, Alfred Maximilian Gruenther – senior United States Army officer, Red Cross president, and bridge player
* Thomas W. Hartmann – Brigadier General, lawyer and officer in the United States Air Force Reserve
* Friedrich Hecker – lawyer, politician, revolutionary and Civil War colonel
* Lewis Heermann – commissioned Surgeon's Mate in the United States Navy February 8, 1802; in 1942, the destroyer was named in his honor
* Nicholas Herkimer – commanding general at Battle of Oriskany, American Revolutionary War
* Daniel Hiester – political and military leader from the American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War period to the early 19th century
* John Hiester – military leader from the American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War period to the early 19th century
* Ralph Ignatowski – soldier, of Polish descent, World War II veteran, best friend of John Bradley (Iwo Jima), John Bradley
* Herman Kahn – military strategist and systems theorist
* August Kautz – Brigadier General /Union Army officer
* Walter Krueger – United States Army general during World War II and military historian
* Eugene H. C. Leutze – Admiral of the United States Navy, appointed to the United States Naval Academy by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863
* Jerry M. Linenger – captain, Medical Corps, U.S. Navy and a former NASA astronaut
* Frank Luke MOH aviator World War I
* Aleda E. Lutz – American Army flight nurse during World War II, second-most decorated woman in American military history
* Marc Mitscher – Vice Admiral in the U.S. Navy; served as commander of the Fast Carrier Task Force in the Pacific in the latter half of World War II
* Peter Muhlenberg – clergyman, soldier and a politician of the Colonial, American Revolution, Revolutionary, and Post-Revolutionary eras in Pennsylvania
* Chester W. Nimitz – Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces for the United States and Allied forces during World War II
* Peter Osterhaus – Union Army general in the American Civil War, later serving as a U.S. diplomat
* John J. Pershing – officer in the United States Army, rose to the highest rank ever held in the U.S. Army – General of the Armies
* Molly Pitcher (Mary Ludwig Hays) – American Revolutionary soldier
* Friedrich Adolf Riedesel – regiment commander of the Duchy of Brunswick (Braunschweig) unit hired by the British during the American Revolution
* Edward S. Salomon – Union brigadier general in the American Civil War, of Jewish descent
* Frederick Salomon – Union brigadier general in the American Civil War
* Alexander Schimmelfennig – American Civil War general in the Union Army
* Harry Schmidt (USMC), Harry Schmidt – U.S. Marine Corps general
* Tony F. Schneider – World War II pilot who served as Associate Professor of Naval Science at University of Louisville and as Professor of Naval Science at the University of New Mexico
* James Martinus Schoonmaker – Colonel in the Union Army in the American Civil War and a vice-president of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad
* Harold G. Schrier – officer in the United States Marine Corps, recipient of the Navy Cross, the nation's second highest award for valor, and a combat veteran of World War II and the Korean War; one of the six Marines who raised the first American flag on Mount Suribachi, during the Battle of Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945
* Theodore Schwan – officer who served with distinction during the American Civil War, Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War
* Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. – United States Army General
* Albert Sieber – U.S. Civil War veteran, Chief of Scouts for much of the Apache Wars and tracked Geronimo
* Franz Sigel – teacher, newspaperman, politician, and served as a Union general in the American Civil War
* Clem Sohn – airshow dare-devil in the 1930s; perfected a way of gliding through the air with a home-made wingsuit
* Carl Andrew Spaatz – general in World War II

* Adolph von Steinwehr – served as a Union general in the American Civil War
* Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben – German–Prussian General; served with George Washington in the American Revolutionary War; credited with teaching the Continental Army the essentials of military drill and discipline
* Michael Strobl – retired United States Marine Corps officer
* Gustav Tafel – colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War
* Stephen J. Townsend – U.S. Army general, served with the 10th Mountain Division during the War in Afghanistan (2001–present), war in Afghanistan; born in (West) Germany
* Max Weber (general), Max Weber – Brigadier General in the Union army during the American Civil War; settled in New York City and worked as proprietor of the Konstanz Hotel in New YorkEicher p.558
* Lewis Wetzel – frontiersman and Indian fighter who roamed the hills of western Virginia and Ohio; Wetzel County, West Virginia, is named for him
* Godfrey Weitzel – Major General in the Union army during the American Civil War
* August Willich – general in the Union Army during the American Civil War
* Charles Henry Wilcken – artilleryman who was awarded the Iron Cross by the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV
* Jurgen Wilson – Union Army officer during the American Civil War
* Frederick Charles Winkler – Lieutenant Colonel (United States), lieutenant colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War who was nominated and confirmed for appointment to the grade of Brevet (military), brevet Brigadier general (United States), brigadier general in 1866. He later became a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly
* Henry Wirz (born Heinrich Hartmann Wirz) – Confederate officer tried and executed in the aftermath of the American Civil War
* Elmo Zumwalt – Admiral and later the 19th Chief of Naval Operations in the U.S. Navy, playing a major part in the Vietnam War, the USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000), a guided missile destroyer was named in his honor

Philosophers

* Felix Adler (Society for Ethical Culture), Felix Adler – rationalist intellectual
* Hannah Arendt – political theorist
* Rudolf Carnap – philosopher
* Adolf Grünbaum – philosopher
* Francis Lieber – jurist/political philosopher
* Herbert Marcuse – philosopher (1898–1979)
* Nicholas Rescher – philosopher

Politicians

* Robert Aderholt – politician and attorney serving as the U.S. representative for Alabama's 4th congressional district, serving since 1997.
* John Peter Altgeld – former Union troop, Illinois governor and leading figure of the Progressive Era movement
* Edward L. Bader – politician who served as mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey
* William B. Bader – Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs 1999–2001
* Gerhard Adolph Bading – physician, politician, and diplomatEdward S. Kerstein, ''Milwaukee's All-American Mayor: Portrait of Daniel Webster Hoan.'' Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966; pg. 73.
* Charles Augustus Barnitz – Anti-Masonic Party, Anti-Masonic member of the United States House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 11th congressional district from 1833 to 1835
* Gary Bauer – politician
* Martin Baum – former Mayor of Cincinnati, fought with General Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers
* Paul Bechtner – newspaper editor of ''Abendpost'', manufacturer, and Wisconsin State Assembly politician
* Henry C. Berghoff – Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Cofounder of the The Berghoff (restaurant), Herman J. Berghoff Brewing Company, lawyer, and businessman
* John Boehner – Republican House Majority Leader in the 109th Congress, and a U.S. representative from Ohio's 8th congressional district
* John Bohn – politician who served as mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 1942 to 1948
* William C. Bouck – Governor of the New York, 1843–1844
* Philip Becker – Mayor of Buffalo, New York, serving 1876–1877 and 1886–1889
* Sherburn M. Becker – politician and the 41st List of mayors of Milwaukee, Mayor of Milwaukee
* Mike Braun – Businessman and politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from Indiana
* Martin Grove Brumbaugh – Pennsylvania's 25th Governor (Republican)
* Warren E. Burger – former Chief Justice of the United States
* Henry Burk – former Republican Party (United States), Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania
* George W. Bush – U.S. President (2001–2009)
* Earl Butz, Earl Lauer Butz – Secretary of Agriculture under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
* Hiester Clymer (1827–1884) U.S. Congressman from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
* Kent Conrad – U.S. Senator from North Dakota
* William Q. Dallmeyer – Missouri politician
* Thomas Dixon Jr. – politician, lawyer
* Tom Daschle – U.S. Senator from South Dakota, 1987–2005, former Senate Majority Leader
* William J. Diehl – served as Mayor of Pittsburgh, 1899–1901, a thirty-third degree Free mason, mason
* George Anthony Dondero – U.S. Representative from Michigan
* Sean Duffy – U.S. representative for Wisconsin's 7th congressional district
* Anthony Eickhoff, Gerhard Anton (Anthony) Eickhoff – journalist, editor, author, lawyer, United States Congress representative of New York City, United States Treasury auditor and New York City Fire Commissioner
* Dwight D. Eisenhower – five-star Army general and U.S. president
* Jesse E. Eschbach – judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana and a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
* Jonathan Fritz – politician who has served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, District 111, 111th district
* Tulsi Gabbard – U.S. Congresswoman from Hawaii's 2nd Congressional District
* Timothy Geithner – U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
* Dick Gephardt – U.S. Congressman, 1977–2005
* James Lawrence Getz – member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania
* William Goebel – controversial politician who served as Governor of Kentucky for a few days in 1900 before being assassinated
* Richard W. Guenther – 19th-century politician and pharmacist from Wisconsin
* Charles Godfrey Gunther – Mayor of New York, 1864–1866
* Paul Grottkau – Socialism, socialist political activist and newspaper publisherHarmut Keil, "The German Immigrant Working Class of Chicago, 1875–90: Workers, Labor Leaders, and the Labor Movement," in Dirk Hoerder (ed.), ''American Labor and Immigration History, 1877-1920s: Recent European Research.'' Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983; pg. 165.
* Chuck Hagel – U.S. Senator and Secretary of Defense
* Louis F. Haffen – two-time Bronx, New York Borough President, 1898–1909Bill Twome
South Bronx
pages 77, 78 Picturing America
* John Paul Hammerschmidt – served for 13 terms in the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas
* William Havemeyer – served three times as the Mayor of New York City (1845–1846, 1848–1849, and 1873–1874)
* Max W. Heck – politician and jurist
* Julius Heil – Governor of Wisconsin, 1939–1943
* H. Robert Heller – Governor, Federal Reserve System, 1986–1989 and President of VISA U.S.A.
* Daniel Hiester (1747–1804) US Congressman
* Gabriel Hiester (1749–1824) Pennsylvania political leader
* Isaac Ellmaker Hiester (1824–1871) US Congressman
* John Hiester (1745–1821) US Congressman
* Joseph Hiester (1752–1832) US Congressman and Governor of Pennsylvania
* Daniel Hiester the younger (1774–1834) US Congressman
* William Hiester (Pennsylvania politician), William Hiester (1790–1853) US Congressman
* William Muhlenberg Hiester – (1818–1878) political and military leader in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
* H. John Heinz III – member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania (1971–1977) and the United States Senate (1977–1991) and son of H. J. Heinz II (heir to the H. J. Heinz Company)
* Gustav A. Hoff (1852–1930) – German-born American politician and businessman active in Arizona Territory
* Herbert Hoover – U.S. President
* Francis Huebschmann, Franz Hübschmann – prominent physician and political leader in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Arthur W. Hummel Jr. – U.S. ambassador
* Don Hummel – businessman and politician
* Darrell Issa – businessman and U.S. Representative from California
* Philip Mayer Kaiser – former U.S. diplomat
* Vera Katz – 45th mayor of Portland, Oregon
* Steve King – U.S. Representative
* Charles Frederick Kirschler – former mayor of Allegheny City, Pennsylvania which included Deutschtown, annexed by Pittsburgh
* Henry Kissinger – former Secretary of State, of Jewish-German descent
* John C. Koch – Republican Party (United States), Republican politician who served two terms as mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Matt Koehl leader of the American Nazi Party, which in 1983, influenced by esoteric Nazism, he renamed as the New Order
* Gustav Koerner – Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, 1853–1857, U.S. ambassador to Spain, and one of the original Dreissiger
* Ferdinand Kuehn – Milwaukee politician
* Louis Kuehnle – politician; considered a pioneer in the growing resort town of Atlantic City in the late 1880s
* John Christian Kunkel – former Whig Party (United States), Whig and Republican Party (United States), Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania
* Tom Loeffler – former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from central Texas
* Richard Lugar – U.S. Senator from Indiana
* Judy Martz – 22nd Governor of Montana
* Oscar Marx – mayor of Detroit from 1913 to 1918
* Christopher Memminger, Christopher Gustavus Memminger – first Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury, 1861–1864
* John O. Meusebach, Baron Otfried Hans von Meusebach – Prussian bureaucrat, later an American farmer, politician, and member of the Texas Senate
* Frederick Muhlenberg – minister and politician who was the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
* Peter Muhlenberg – clergyman, a soldier and a politician of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Post-Revolutionary eras in Pennsylvania
* Karl E. Mundt – U.S. Senator and Congressman
* Paul Henry Nitze – Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
* Richard Nixon – U.S. president; of English, Irish and German ancestries
* Barack Obama – U.S. president; mother, Ann Dunham, has German ancestors who arrived in America in 1750
* Sarah Palin – former Governor of Alaska; Republican nominee for vice president in 2008; both parents are of partial German ancestry
* Ron Paul – former U.S. Congressman from Texas
* Henry Paulson – U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
* Tim Pawlenty – former Governor of Minnesota; mother was of German descent
* Horace Porter – decorated Union soldier and diplomat; son of David Rittenhouse Porter, a wealthy ironmaster who later served as Governor of Pennsylvania
* Reince Priebus – chairman of the Republican National Committee and also a previous chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin
* William C. Rauschenberger – Republican Party (United States), Republican politician who served as mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Luke Ravenstahl – Pittsburgh mayor
* Denny Rehberg – Lieutenant governor of Montana, 1991–1997 and U.S. representative for Montana's at-large congressional district, 2001–2013
* Jim Risch – former Governor of Idaho
* Joseph Ritner – List of Governors of Pennsylvania, eighth Governor of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, elected as a member of the Anti-Masonic Party
* Nelson Rockefeller – Governor of New York and forty-first Vice President of the United States
* Winthrop Rockefeller – politician and philanthropist who served as the first Republican Governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction Era, Reconstruction
* William E. Rodriguez (1879–1970) – socialist politician and lawyer; first Hispanic elected to the Chicago City Council; of Spanish and German descent"Chicago's First Hispanic Alderman: How William E. Rodriguez broke ethnic — and political — barriers," ''Chicago'' magazine, vol. 30, no. 11 (November 1981), pp. 144–147.
* Brian Roehrkasse – spokesman at the United States Justice Department under the administration of George W. Bushhttp://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2007/04/americans_with_.html "Americans with Odd German Names"
* Dana Rohrabacher – Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1989, currently representing California's 46th congressional district
* Mitt Romney – politician, businessman and former presidential candidate who has served as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from Utah since January 2019. He previously served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and was the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party's nominee for president of the United States in the 2012 United States presidential election, 2012 election.
* Theodore Roosevelt – U.S. President
* John Hoover Rothermel – member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania
* Donald Rumsfeld – former Secretary of Defense
* Paul Ryan – former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from Wisconsin
* Edward Salomon – Governor of Wisconsin during the Civil War
* Edward S. Salomon – Union brigadier general in the Civil War, later became governor of Washington Territory and a California legislator
* George E. Sangmeister – Senator and Congressman from Illinois; served in various elected public offices, 1972–1994
* Harry Sauthoff – lawyer, Wisconsin State Senator, also served in the United States House of Representatives
* Gustav Schleicher – U.S. Representative from Texas, serving briefly in Texas legislature and veteran of the Confederate Army
* Solomon Scheu – mayor of Buffalo, New York, in office 1878–1880
* Steve Schmidt – campaign strategist
* Gustav A. Schneebeli – former United States House of Representatives, United States Representative from the state of Pennsylvania
* Frederick A. Schroeder – industrialist and politician
* Terry Schrunk – politician who served as the mayor for the city of Portland, Oregon, 1957–1973
* Mark S. Schweiker – 44th Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania
* Richard Schweiker, Richard Schultz Schweiker – former U.S. Congressman and Senator representing the state of Pennsylvania, later the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Cabinet of President Ronald Reagan
* Carl Schurz – statesman and reformer, and Union Army general in the American Civil War
* Sargent Shriver – diplomat, politician and activist, as the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family
* John Andrew Shulze – Pennsylvania political leader and 6th Governor of Pennsylvania, a member of the Muhlenberg family political dynasty
* Emil Seidel – Mayor of Milwaukee, 1910–1912; the first Socialist mayor of a major city in the United States, and ran as the vice presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America in the 1912 United States presidential election, 1912 presidential election"Our Candidates Emil Seidel", ''Cleveland Socialist'', whole no. 48 (September 21, 1912), pg. 2.
* August Siemering – writer, political leader and Forty-Eighters, Forty-Eighter
* Al Smith – Governor of New York
* Jackie Speier – U.S. Representative, California's 12th and 14th districts, serving since 2008; father was a German immigrant
* Harold Edward Stassen was the List of Governors of Minnesota, 25th Governor of Minnesota, 1939–1943
* Richard Fred Suhrheinrich – judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
* Brian Schweitzer – served as the 23rd Governor of Montana
* Strom Thurmond – U.S. Senator
* Donald Trump – List of presidents of the United States, 45th President of the United States
* Jesse Ventura – former Governor of Minnesota (1999–2003), his mother is of Hungarian-German descent
* Ferdinand E. Volz – Mayor of Pittsburgh, 1854–1856
* Robert F. Wagner – U.S. Senator from New York, 1927–1949
* Emil Wallber – mayor of Milwaukee from 1884 to 1888, during the Bay View Tragedy, Great Labor Strike of 1886
* Lowell P. Weicker Jr. – politician who has served as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and Governor of Connecticut
* Wendell Willkie – lawyer and the Republican nominee for the 1940 United States presidential election, 1940 presidential election
* Carl Zeidler – mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 1940 to 1942
* Frank Zeidler – mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, serving three terms from April 20, 1948, to April 18, 1960
* Robert Zoellick – eleventh president of the World Bank, former United States Deputy Secretary of state and Office of the United States Trade Representative, United States Trade Representative

Religious

* Joseph Breuer – leader of the Orthodox Jewish community of Washington Heights, Manhattan; very well known for his involvement in setting up an Orthodox Jewish infrastructure in post-World War II America
* Conrad Beissel – religious leader who in 1732 founded the Ephrata Community in Pennsylvania
* Raymond Philip Etteldorf – Roman Catholic Archbishop and author
* George J. Geis – Baptist missionary in Kachin State, Myanmar, Burma
* Eugene John Gerber – prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Roman Catholic Diocese of Dodge City, Bishop of Dodge City from 1976 to 1982, and Roman Catholic Diocese of Wichita, Bishop of Wichita from 1982 to 2001.
* Robert Graetz – Lutheran clergyman
* Stanley Hauerwas – theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual
* Barbara Heck – 1768 – founder of the first Methodist church in New York
* Joseph J. Himmel – Catholic Church, Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus. For much of his early life, he was a missionary throughout the Northeastern United States, northeast United States and Retreat (spiritual), retreat master. Later in life, he was president of Gonzaga College High School, Gonzaga College and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
* Samuel Hirsch – philosopher and rabbi
* Arthur W. Hummel Sr. – Christian missionary to China and Sinology, Sinologist
* Johannes Kelpius – pietist, mystic, musician, and writer, interested in the occult, botany, and astronomy, came to believe with his followers in the "Society of the Woman in the Wilderness"
* Kathryn Kuhlman – 20th-century faith healer and Pentecostal arm of Protestant Christianity
* Benjamin Kurtz – Lutheranism, Lutheran pastor and theologian
* Barbara Heinemann Landmann – spiritual leader of the Amana Colonies
* Alexander Mack – Germantown, Pennsylvania New World religious leader
* Christian Metz (Inspirationalist), Christian Metz – inspirationalist
* Albert Gregory Meyer – Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago
* Henry K. Moeller – Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cincinnati
* John Gottlieb Morris – Lutheran minister who played an influential role in the evolution of the Lutheran church in America.
* Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg – Lutheran clergyman
* Richard John Neuhaus – clergyman (first a Lutheran pastor and then a Roman Catholic priest), theologian, and ethicist
* John Neumann, St. John Neumann – Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Bishop of Philadelphia (1852–60) and the first American bishop to be canonization, canonized
* Reinhold Niebuhr – Protestant theologian best known for his work relating the Christian faith to the realities of modern politics and diplomacy
* William Passavant – Lutheran minister noted for bringing the Lutheran Deaconess movement to the United States
* George Rapp – founder of the religious sect called Harmonists, Harmonites, Rappites, or the Harmony Society
* Augustus Rauschenbusch – clergyman
* Walter Rauschenbusch – theologian and Baptist pastor who taught at the Rochester Theological Seminary
* Joseph Ritter, Joseph Cardinal Ritter – Roman Catholic Archbishop and Cardinal of the Church, desegregated schools in his two archdioceses in the mid-1940s
* George Erik Rupp – educator and theologian, the former President of Rice University and later of Columbia University, and president of the International Rescue Committee
* Theodore Emanuel Schmauk – Lutheran minister, educator, author and Church theologian, one of the organizers of the Pennsylvania Dutch Society (1891)
* Theodore Schneider – second bishop of the Metropolitan Washington, D.C., synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
* Francis Xavier Seelos – Roman Catholic missionary priest beatified in 2000
* Joseph Strub – founder of what is today Duquesne University, which was called the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost until 1911
* Billy Sunday – evangelist
* Paul Tillich – Protestant theologian and Christian existentialism, Christian existentialist philosopher
* C. F. W. Walther – Lutheran clergyman, professor, seminary president, editor, and first president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod
* Donald Wuerl – prelate of the Roman Catholic Church
* Nicolaus Zinzendorf, Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf – founded the town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where his daughter Benigna organized the school that would become Moravian College
* Dieter F. Uchtdorf – apostle and current second counselor in the First Presidency within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; born in the Czech Republic to German parents, Uchtdorf immigrated to the United States as a retired pilot to serve full-time as a general authority for his Church and became an American citizen shortly after joining the First Presidency in 2008

Scientists and inventors

* David Alter – inventor, physicist and doctor
* Reinhold Aman – chemical engineer and publisher of ''Maledicta''
* Othmar Ammann – civil engineer
* Rudolf Arnheim – author, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist; learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and applied it to art
* Walter Baade – astronomer
* Earl W. Bascom – inventor of rodeo equipment
* Max Bentele – pioneer in the field of jet aircraft turbines and mechanical engineering
* Hans Albrecht Bethe – nuclear physicist who won a Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the nuclear energy sources of stars (1967)
* Franz Boas – anthropologist and ethnologist best known for his work with the Kwakiutl Indians in British Columbia, Canada
* Karl Brandt (economist), Karl Brandt – economist
* Magnus von Braun – chemical engineer, ''Luftwaffe'' aircraft pilot, aviator, and Aerospace engineering#In popular culture, rocket scientist at Peenemünde, the Mittelwerk, and after emigrating to the United States via Operation Paperclip, at Fort Bliss; brother of Wernher von Braun
* Wernher von Braun – Aerospace engineering#In popular culture, rocket scientist, aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, space architect
* Florian Cajori – mathematician
* Hermann Collitz – eminent German Historical linguistics, historical linguist and Indo-European studies, Indo-Europeanist
* Werner Dahm – NASA rocket scientist
* Hans Georg Dehmelt – physicist
* Max Delbrück – biophysicist
* Krafft Arnold Ehricke – rocket-propulsion engineer
* Ernst R. G. Eckert – scientist
* Otto Eckstein – economist
* Albert Einstein – theoretical physicist, philosopher and author of Jewish ethnicity
* George Engelmann – botanist
* Katherine Esau – botanist
* Edmond H. Fischer – biochemist
* James Franck – physicist
* John Fritz – pioneer of iron and steel technologyexplorepahistory.com
John F. Fritz [engineer]Sandra E. Duffy (201
Fritz Lab: Not Just for Chicks
from Pennsylvania State University who has been referred to as the "Father of the U.S. Steel Industry"
* Frieda Fromm-Reichmann – psychoanalyst, founded William Alanson White Institute
* Ernst Geissler – NASA aerospace engineer
* William Paul Gerhard – sanitary engineer
* William H. Gerstenmaier – senior NASA official who served as NASA's Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations
* Ivan A. Getting – physicist and electrical engineer, credited (along with Roger L. Easton and Bradford Parkinson) with the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS)
* Edward Glaeser – economist and Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University
* Heinrich Göbel – precision mechanic and inventor, who was long seen as an early pioneer who independently developed designs for an incandescent light bulb, though this claim is seen as unlikely today
* Maria Goeppert Mayer – Nobel Prize-winning physicist
* John P. Grotzinger – Fletcher Jones Professor of Geology at California Institute of Technology under the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
* Martin Gruebele – biophysicist and Computational biologist, currently associated with many departments at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
* Dietrich Gruen – timepiece or wristwatch maker; founded the Gruen Watch Company in Ohio
* Helmut Gröttrup – rocket scientist
* Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht – literary theorist and professor at Stanford University
* Walter Haeussermann – NASA rocket scientist
* Ewald Heer – aerospace engineer
* Michael Heidelberger – regarded as the father of modern immunology
* Holger Henke – political scientist
* Herman Hollerith – inventor of tabulating machines
* Karen Horney – psychoanalyst
* Edmund C. Jaeger – naturalist
* Donald J. Kessler – astrophysicist
* Siegfried Knemeyer – aviation technologist, civilian employee and consultant with the United States Air Force for over twenty years
* Donald Knuth – computer scientist, known as "The Yoda of Silicon Valley"
* Wolfgang Köhler – psychologist
* Heinrich Klüver – psychologist, largely credited with introducing Gestalt psychology to the United States in the early 20th century
* Alfred Louis Kroeber – cultural anthropologist
* Polykarp Kusch – physicist
* Berthold Laufer – anthropologist, historical geographer
* Willy Ley – science writer and space advocate who helped popularise rocketry and spaceflight
* Jacques Loeb – biologist, Nobel Prize candidate
* Leo Loeb – biologist, pathologist
* Ottmar Mergenthaler – Mergenthaler Linotype Company, linotype inventor
* Hugo Münsterberg – psychologist, pioneered applied psychology
* Emmy Noether – mathematician
* Robert Oppenheimer – physicist and director of the Manhattan Project, also known as "The Father of the Nuclear weapon, Atomic Bomb"
* Robert F. Overmyer – test pilot and USAF and NASA astronaut
* Linus Pauling, Linus Carl Pauling – chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, educator
* Charles Francis Richter – seismologist, inventor of the Richter magnitude scale
* Jesco von Puttkamer – Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, senior manager at NASA, and a Pulp magazine, pulp science fiction writer
* David Rittenhouse – astronomer, inventor, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman, public official and first director of the United States Mint
* Eileen Rockefeller Growald – founder and former president of the Institute for the Advancement of Health
* Gunther E. Rothenberg – military historian, professor at Purdue University and elsewhere, of Jewish descent
* Otto Schaden – Egyptologist
* Vincent Schaefer – chemist and meteorologist who developed cloud seeding
* Hermann Irving Schlesinger – inorganic chemist, working in boron chemistry, co-discovered sodium borohydride in 1940
* Frank Schlesinger – astronomer
* Alfred Schütz – philosopher/sociologist
* Rusty Schweickart – astronaut
* Lewis David de Schweinitz – botanist and mycologist, "Father of American Mycology"
* Frederick Seitz – physicist, co-inventor of the Wigner-Seitz unit cell, which is an important concept in solid state physics
* Herbert A. Simon – political scientist
* Lyman Spitzer – theoretical physicist, astronomer and mountaineer
* Charles Proteus Steinmetz – electrical engineer, fostered development of alternating current
* Adam Steltzner – NASA engineer who works for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), flight projects including Galileo, Cassini orbiter, Cassini, Mars Pathfinder, Mars Exploration Rovers
* Joseph Strauss (engineer), Joseph Strauss – structural engineer and designer, chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge
* Otto Stern – physicist and Nobel laureate, known for his studies of molecular beams
* Frederick Traugott Pursh – botanist
* George Waldbott – physician, allergy and fluoride specialist
* David Wechsler – psychologist
* Hellmuth Walter – engineer who pioneered research into rocket engines and gas turbines
* Victor Frederick Weisskopf – World War II physicist of German-Jew ethnicity
* Gustave Whitehead – aviation pioneer, built first motorized plane
* Gerould Wilhelm – botanist and lichenologist who developed the Floristic Quality Assessment system for analyzing plant communities in the United States and Canada.
* Eckard Wimmer – virologist, Distinguished Professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Stony Brook University; known for the first chemical synthesis of a viral genome capable of infection and subsequent production of live viruses
* Louis Wirth – sociologist
* Caspar Wistar (physician), Caspar Wistar – physician and anatomist
* Albert Wohlstetter – nuclear scientist
* Hans Zinsser – American bacteriologist, physician and author.
* Max August Zorn – algebraist, group theorist, and numerical analyst

Sports

Baseball professionals

* Chris von der Ahe – owner of the St. Louis Brown Stockings of the American Association, now the St. Louis Cardinals
* Nick Altrock – professional baseball player and Coach (baseball), coach
* Trevor Bauer – MLB pitcher
* Chris Beck (baseball), Chris Beck – Chicago White Sox pitcher
* Heinz Becker – MLB first baseman who played for the Chicago Cubs (1943, 1945–46) and Cleveland Indians (1946–47)
* Zinn Beck – MLB third baseman, shortstop and first baseman; minor league manager and baseball scout
* Heinie Beckendorf – former MLB catcher
* Joe Benz – former pitcher for the Chicago White Sox; threw a no-hitter
* Lou Bierbauer – former MLB second baseman during the late 1880s and 1890s; credited with giving the Pittsburgh Pirates their name
* Mike Blowers – former MLB third baseman and first baseman; current Seattle Mariners radio commentator
* Brennan Boesch – MLBoutfielder
* Ted Breitenstein – former MLB pitcher and part of the "Pretzel Battery" with Heinie Peitz
* Clay Buchholz – MLB pitcher for the Boston Red Sox
* Taylor Buchholz – MLB pitcher
* Mark Buehrle – MLB pitcher
* Fritz Buelow – former MLB
* Jay Buhner – former MLB player
* Madison Bumgarner – MLB pitcher for the San Francisco Giants
* Roger Clemens – former MLB pitcher
* Bill Dahlen – former MLB shortstop
* Babe Danzig – MLB first baseman
* Ross Detwiler – MLB pitcher
* Mel Deutsch – former MLB pitcher
* Bill Dietrich – MLB pitcher
* Derek Dietrich – MLB 2nd baseman
* Barney Dreyfuss – baseball executive
* Ryne Duren – former relief pitcher in MLB
* Justin Duchscherer – MLB pitcher
* David Eckstein – MLB player and 2006 World Series MVP
* Elmer Eggert, Mose Eggert – second baseman in Major League Baseball
* Hack Eibel – utility player in Major League Baseball
* Jim Eisenreich – former MLB outfielder
* Kid Elberfeld – "The Tabasco Kid", former shortstop in MLB
* Jacoby Ellsbury – center fielder
* Joe Engel – former left-handed pitcher and scout in MLB who spent nearly his entire career with the History of the Washington Senators (1901–1960), Washington Senators
* Happy Felsch, Oscar Emil "Happy" Felsch – center fielder for the Chicago White Sox, best known for his involvement in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal
* David Freese – 2011 National League Championship Series MVP Award and the 2011 World Series MVP Award winner
* Frank Frisch – former MLB player and manager
* Bruce Froemming – MLB umpire, then special assistant to the vice president on umpiring
* Gene Garber – former MLB player
* Ron Gardenhire – former New York Mets player and current Minnesota Twins manager
* Lou Gehrig – MLB player
* Charlie Gehringer – MLB second baseman, played 19 seasons (1924–1942) for the Detroit Tigers
* Pretzels Getzien, Charlie "Pretzels" Getzien – former MLB pitcher
* Troy Glaus – former MLB third baseman
* Paul Goldschmidt – MLB first baseman
* Zack Greinke – MLB pitcher
* Charlie Grimm – former MLB player
* Justin Grimm – MLB relief pitcher
* Heinie Groh – third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants
* Travis Hafner – Cleveland Indians designated hitter
* Noodles Hahn – former MLB pitcher
* Ian Happ – second baseman for the Chicago Cubs
* Roy Hartzell – MLB player 1906–1916
* Arnold Hauser (shortstop), Arnold Hauser – former MLB shortstop
* Harry Heilmann – Hall of Fame MLB player and World War I Veteran
* Fred Heimach – former MLB pitcher and part of the "Murderers' Row" Yankee teams
* Tommy Henrich – MLB player nicknamed "The Clutch" and "Old Reliable"
* Tom Herr – former MLB second baseman
* August Herrmann – MLB executive
* Orel Hershiser – former MLB pitcher
* Buck Herzog – MLB infielder and manager
* Whitey Herzog – MLB outfielder, scout, coach, manager, general manager and farm system director
* Shea Hillenbrand – baseball player
* Dick Hoblitzel – MLB first baseman
* Billy Hoeft – former MLB pitcher
* Barbara Hoffman – All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player
* Glenn Hubbard (baseball), Glenn Hubbard – former Atlanta Braves and Oakland Athletics player and current Braves' coach
* Carl Hubbell – MLB Hall of Fame screwball pitcher
* John Hummel – former MLB utility player
* Brock Huntzinger – MLB free agent
* Jason Isringhausen – MLB relief pitcher
* Edwin Jackson (baseball), Edwin Jackson – MLB pitcher
* Derek Jeter – former MLB shortstop, played 20 season
* Jeff Karstens – MLB pitcher
* Pop Kelchner – college professor who spoke seven languages; prolific MLB scout
* Alex Kellner – MLB pitcherhttps://sabr.org/bioproj/person/6d17077b "His paternal great-grandfather, Johann Justus Kellner, a German immigrant."
* Walt Kellner – MLB pitcher
* Dean Kiekhefer – MLB relief pitcher
* Chuck Klein – former MLB outfielder
* Johnny Kling – former MLB catcher
* Bob Knepper – former MLB all-star pitcher
* Chuck Knoblauch – former MLB second baseman
* Mark Koenig – former MLB shortstop for the New York Yankees, 1925–1936
* Howie Koplitz – baseball player, pitcher for the 1961 Tigers and then the Senators until 1966
* Rick Kranitz – MLB pitching coach
* Gene Krapp – MLB pitcher
* Erik Kratz – MLB catcher
* Harvey Kuenn – player, coach and manager in MLB
* Randy Keisler – former MLB pitcher
* Dallas Keuchel – MLB pitcher
* Bowie Kuhn – former commissioner of MLB
* Kenesaw Mountain Landis – while serving as a Federal judge, Landis, an ardent baseball fan, was selected as chairman of a new National Commission of baseball
* Charley Lau – American League catcher and hitting coach, authored ''How to Hit .300''
* Charlie Leibrandt – former MLB pitcher
* Craig Lefferts – former MLB pitcher
* Jon Lieber – MLB pitcher
* Jesse Litsch – MLB pitcher
* Hans Lobert – infielder, coach, manager and scout in MLB
* Kyle Lohse – MLB pitcher
* Chuck Machemehl – former Cleveland Indians pitcher
* Heinie Manush – Hall of Fame left-fielder in MLB
* Nick Markakis – outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles
* Erskine Mayer – MLB pitcher
* Heinie Meine – sometimes "Heinie" Meine, professional baseball player
* Fred Merkle – first baseman in Major League Baseball, 1907–1926
* Bob Meusel – former MLB shortstop
* Irish Meusel, Emil Meusel – former MLB outfielder
* Bill Mueller – retired MLB third baseman
* Freddie Muller – infielder in Major League Baseball
* Les Mueller – former MLB pitcher
* Walter Mueller – former professional baseball player who played outfield in MLB 1922–1926
* Fritz Mollwitz – born in Germany, former Major League Baseball first baseman
* Chris Nabholz – former starting pitcher in MLB
* Jeff Niemann – pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays
* Brett Oberholtzer – MLB pitcher
* Ross Ohlendorf – MLB pitcher
* Daniel Ortmeier – MLB pitcher
* Fritz Ostermueller – pitcher in MLB 1934–1948
* Barney Pelty – MLB pitcher
* Heinie Peitz – former MLB catcher and part of the "Pretzel Battery" with Ted Breitenstein
* Dick Radatz – "The Monster" or "Moose", relief pitcher in MLB
* Rick Reuschel – former MLB pitcher
* Rick Rhoden – former Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher and current golf professional
* John Rocker – former MLB reliever and controversial figure
* Oscar Roettger – first baseman and right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Wally Roettger – outfielder in Major League Baseballhttp://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=roettger "Roettger Name Meaning North German (also Röttger): variant of Rudiger or Roger."
* Trevor Rosenthal – MLB Pitcher
* Babe Ruth – MLB player 1914–1935
* Adley Rutschman – catcher for the Oregon State Beavers, seen as a top prospect for the 2019 MLB Draft
* Germany Schaefer – former second baseman in MLB who played fifteen seasons
* Jordan Schafer – MLB player
* Ray Schalk – MLB catcher
* Bobby Shantz – MLB pitcher
* Scott Schebler – outfielder in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization
* Bob Scheffing – baseball player, coach, manager and front-office executive
* Carl Scheib – right-handed pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball
* Max Scherzer – MLB pitcher
* Curt Schilling – MLB pitcher
* Ryan Schimpf – former LSU Tigers baseball and MLB infielder
* Gus Schmelz – MLB manager
* Jason Schmidt – MLB baseball pitcher
* Mike Schmidt – former Philadelphia Phillies third baseman and Hall of Famer
* Frank Schneiberg – pitcher in Major League Baseball
* Brian Schneider – MLB catcher
* Red Schoendienst – former player, coach and manager in MLB
* Scott Schoeneweis – MLB relief pitcher
* Marge Schott – managing general partner, president and CEO of Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds franchise, 1984–1999
* Paul Schrieber – MLB umpire
* Al Schroll – MLB baseball pitcher
* Heinie Schuble – former MLB infielder
* John Schuerholz – general manager of the Atlanta Braves
* Frank Schulte – right fielder in Major League Baseball
* Joe Schultz – catcher, coach and manager in MLB
* Joe Schultz (outfielder), Joe Schultz Sr. – Joe "Germany" Schultz, outfielder and farm system director in MLB and a manager in minor league baseball
* Skip Schumaker – outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals
* Ralph Schwamb – St. Louis Browns pitcher and convicted murderer
* Kyle Schwarber – MLB catcher
* Bob Shawkey – baseball pitcher who played fifteen seasons in Major League Baseball
* J. B. Shuck – outfielder for the Chicago White Sox
* John Smoltz – pitcher for the Atlanta Braves
* Travis Snider – outfielder in MLB
* Warren Spahn – Hall of Fame pitcher in MLB
* Justin Speier – relief pitcher
* Rusty Staub – MLB player for 23 seasons (1963–1985)
* Terry Steinbach – former catcher in MLB
* Hank Steinbrenner – art-owner and Senior Vice President of the New York Yankees, along with his brother Hal Steinbrenner
* Harry Steinfeldt – MLB utility infielder
* Casey Stengel – MLB player and manager, early 1910s–1960s
* Stephen Strasburg – MLB pitcher
* Gus Suhr – Major League Baseball first baseman
* Bruce Sutter – Hall of Fame right-handed relief pitcher in MLB
* Nick Swisher – infielder in MLB
* Duke Snider – Hall of Fame MLB center fielder
* Jake Thielman – MLB pitcher
* Jack Thoney – reserve outfielder / infielder in Major League Baseball who played from 1902 through 1911
* Peter Ueberroth – executive, served as commissioner of MLB, 1984–1989
* Bob Uecker – former MLB player and award-winning sportscaster, comedian, and actor
* Jim Umbricht – former MLB pitcher
* Frank Viola – former starting pitcher in MLB
* Chris von der Ahe – entrepreneur and owner of the St. Louis Browns of the National League, now known as the Cardinals
* Fritz Von Kolnitz – MLB third baseman
* Doug Waechter – MLB pitcher, currently a free agent
* Billy Wagner – MLB closer
* Heinie Wagner – former MLB shortstop for the New York Giants and the Boston Red Sox
* Honus Wagner – former Pittsburgh Pirate Baseball Hall of Fame, Hall of Fame shortstop, manager and hitting instructor
* Bill Wambsganss – second baseman in MLB
* Duke Welker – MLB pitcher
* Jayson Werth – MLB outfielder
* Vic Wertz – former MLB first baseman and outfielder
* Hoyt Wilhelm – Hall of Fame knuckleball pitcher in MLB
* Nick Wittgren – pitcher with the Miami Marlins
* Shawn Wooten – former MLB player
* Michael Wuertz – MLB pitcher
* Christian Yelich – MLB outfielder, great-grandson of Fred Gehrke
* Ryan Zimmerman – MLB player
* Jordan Zimmermann – MLB pitcher
* Ben Zobrist – MLB second baseman
* Bill Zuber – MLB pitcher, 1936–1947

Basketball

* Uwe Blab – former NBA center
* Buddy Boeheim – Syracuse University guardhttps://www.lifeinthefingerlakes.com/boeheim-basketball/ "The Boeheims were German in an Italian neighborhood, but honestly, it's not like my family celebrated their cultural heritage much."
* Jim Boeheim – Syracuse University NCAA basketball coach
* Carlos Boozer – professional basketball player born in West Germany in a U.S. Army base
* Shawn Bradley – former center in the National Basketball Association, NBA and for the German national basketball team
* Carl Braun (basketball), Carl Braun – professional basketball player and coach
* Jon Brockman – professional basketball player
* Jud Buechler – former guard/forward with the NBA Chicago Bulls
* Jon Diebler – professional basketball player
* Demond Greene – professional basketball player for the German national team
* Isaiah Hartenstein – NBA Power Forward / Center
* Tom Heinsohn – professional basketball player and color commentator
* Fred Hetzel – retired NBA basketball player
* Kirk Hinrich – NBA guard for the Chicago Bulls
* Phil Jackson – New York Knicks team president, former NBA player and coach; Jackson's mother was part of a German Mennonite family
* Chris Kaman – center for the Los Angeles Clippers in the NBA and for the German national basketball team (dual citizen of the United States and of Germany)
* Lon Kruger – professional and college basketball coach
* Jon Leuer – professional basketball player
* Rebecca Lobo – television basketball analyst and a former player in the professional Women's National Basketball Association
* Drew Neitzel – All-American NCAA basketball player
* Jeff Neubauer – Western Kentucky University NCAA basketball coach
* Johnny Neumann – professional basketball player and coach
* Dirk Nowitzki – German player for Dallas Mavericks in National Basketball Association, NBA who applied for U.S. citizenship in 2011
* Greg Ostertag – NBA center
* Steve Prohm – college basketball coach
* Anthony Randolph – professional basketball player born in West Germany in a U.S. Army base
* Adolph Rupp – college basketball coach and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame member
* Fred Schaus – basketball player, head coach and athletic director
* Detlef Schrempf – former NBA All-Star forward
* Akeem Vargas – professional basketball player for the German national team
* Jeff Walz – head coach of the women's basketball team at the University of Louisville

American Football

* John Alt – former offensive tackle in the NFL
* Jay Berwanger – the first recipient (1935) of the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, renamed in 1936 as the Heisman Memorial Trophy.
* Kroy Biermann – NFL defensive end
* Tom Brady – quarterback, one of only two players to win five Super Bowls
* Dave Butz – NFL defensive lineman, selected to the National Football League 1980s All-Decade Team, NFL 1980s All-Decade Team
* Amon-Ra St. Brown – wide receiver for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at USC and was drafted by the Lions in the fourth round of the 2021 NFL Draft.
* Equanimeous St. Brown – wide receiver for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Notre Dame and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the sixth round of the 2018 NFL Draft.
* Gunther Cunningham – American football head coach
* Fritz Crisler – NCAA football coach
* David Diehl – football player and NFL offensive lineman
* Dan Dierdorf – former NFL football player and current television sportscaster
* Conrad Dobler – former offensive lineman
* Chris Doering – former college and professional football player; wide receiver in the NFL
* Dave Duerson – safety in the NFL, two-time Super Bowl Champion
* Zach Ertz – tight end in the NFL
* Kirk Ferentz – head coach of University of Iowa Hawkeyes football
* Fred Gehrke – NFL halfback / defensive back and executive; great-grandfather of Milwaukee Brewers left fielder, Christian Yelich
* Jared Goff – quarterback
* Bob Griese – Hall of Fame quarterback
* Al Groh – NCCA Virginia football head coach and former NFL coach
* Hinkey Haines – NFL player and MLB player
* Don Hasselbeck – NFL
* Matt Hasselbeck – NFL football player
* Tim Hasselbeck analyst and former professional quarterback
* Keith Heinrich – NFL tight end
* John Heisman – football player, coach, and namesake of the Heisman Trophy
* Kirk Herbstreit – former Ohio State University quarterback and analyst for ESPN's ''College GameDay (football TV program), College GameDay''
* Elroy Hirsch, Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch – running back and receiver for the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Rockets, nicknamed for his unusual running style
* Domenik Hixon – NFL wide receiver
* Jeff Hostetler – former NFL quarterback
* Harvey Jablonsky – football player and U.S. Army Veteran who was a 'highly decorated veteran' of both World War II and later in his career the Vietnam War, elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1978
* Brett Keisel – defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers
* Don Klosterman (American football), Don Klosterman – quarterback
* Jonathan Klinsmann – son of Jürgen Klinsmann, goalkeeper for LA Galaxy
* Dan Kreider – fullback in the NFL
* Dave Krieg – former NFL Seattle Seahawks quarterback
* Clint Kriewaldt – linebacker in the NFL
* Luke Kuechly – linebacker in the National Football League
* John Kuhn – fullback, currently playing for the Green Bay Packers
* Kory Lichtensteiger – NFL center
* Lex Luger – former football player and professional wrestler
* Todd Marinovich – former NFL American and Canadian football quarterback
* Zach Mettenberger – LSU and NFL quarterback
* Christian Mohr – NFL defensive end
* Nesser brothers – group of football playing brothers who helped make up the most famous football family in the United States, 1907–mid-1920s
** John Nesser: born April 25, 1875, in Triere, Germany, and died August 1, 1931, in Columubus, Ohio
** John Peter Nesser: born October 22, 1877, in Triere, Germany, and died May 29, 1954, in Columbus, Ohio
** Philipp Gregory Nesser: born December 10, 1880, in Triere, Germany, and died May 9, 1959, in Columbus, Ohio
** Theodore H. (Ted) Nesser: born April 8, 1883, in Dennison, Ohio, and died June 7, 1941, in Columbus, Ohio
** Frederick William Nesser: born September 10, 1887, in Columbus, Ohio, and died July 2, 1967, in Columbus, Ohio
** Francis Raymond (Frank) Nesser: born June 3, 1889, in Columbus, Ohio, and died January 1, 1953, in Columbus, Ohio
** Alfred Louis Nesser: born June 6, 1893, in Columbus, Ohio, and died March 11, 1967, in Columbus, Ohio
** Raymond Joseph Nesser: born March 22, 1898, in Columbus, Ohio, and died September 2, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio
* Rick Neuheisel – football coach
* Ray Nitschke – Hall of Fame football player
* Brock Osweiler – NFL quarterback
* Tyler Ott – long snapper
* Jim Otto – former Oakland Raider offensive lineman
* Robin Pflugrad – college football coachhttp://forebears.io/surnames/pflugrad "Pflugrad Surname Distribution"
* Ricky Proehl – former NFL wide receiver, two-time Super Bowl Champion
* George Ratterman – former player in the All-America Football Conference and the NFL
* Ben Roethlisberger – Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback of Swiss-German descent, two-time Super Bowl Champion
* Rudy Ruettiger – former player at Holy Cross College (1972–1974) and Notre Dame
* George Sauer – former American football player, coach, college sports administrator, and professional football executive
* George Sauer Jr. – wide receiver who played six seasons for the American Football League's New York Jets
* Matt Schaub – NFL quarterback
* Bo Schembechler – former NCAA football coach at the University of Michigan
* Anthony Schlegel – former linebacker
* Cory Schlesinger – NFL fullback
* Blake Schlueter – former American football and NCAA TCU center
* Francis Schmidt – college football coach inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame
* Joe Schmidt (American football), Joe Schmidt – former 1950s NFL football player and coach
* Owen Schmitt – NFL fullback
* John Schneider (American football player), John Schneider – professional American football player in the Ohio League and the early National Football League for the Columbus Panhandles
* John Schneider (American football executive), John Schneider – professional American football executive
* Joe Schobert – linebacker
* Turk Schonert – former NFL quarterback
* Jay Schroeder – former professional quarterback in the NFL
* Geoff Schwartz – NFL offensive lineman
* Mitchell Schwartz – NFL offensive tackle
* Jim Schwartz – NFL head coach
* Stephen Spach – NFL tight end
* Matt Spaeth – tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers
* Roger Staubach – Heisman Trophy winner and Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys
* Eric Steinbach – NFL offensive lineman
* Zach Strief – NFL offensive lineman
* Harry Stuhldreher – football player, coach, and college athletics administrator
* Zach Sudfeld – NFL tight end
* Nate Sudfeld – quarterback
* Mike Tannenbaum – professional football executive, who is currently the Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the Miami Dolphins and former general manager for the New York Jets
* Jim Tressel – college head football coach
* Brian Urlacher – Pro Bowl linebacker for the Chicago Bears
* Sebastian Vollmer – NFL offensive Lineman
* Kimo von Oelhoffen – NFL linebacker
* Uwe von Schamann – former NFL kicker
* Mike Wagner – safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, 1971–1980; member of the famed Steel Curtain defense; played in two Pro Bowls
* Charlie Weis – NFL football coach
* Wes Welker – NFL wide receiver, punt returner, and kick returner
* Carson Wentz – football quarterback for the North Dakota State Bison
* Björn Werner – NFL linebacker
* Matt Wilhelm – NFL linebacker
* Danny Wuerffel – former NFL quarterback and 1996 Heisman Trophy winner
* Zach Zenner – NFL running back
* Jim Zorn – Seattle Seahawks quarterback

Golf

* Jason Dufner – professional golfer and 2013 PGA Championship winner
* Walter Hagen – golf legend
* Jack Nicklaus – professional golfer; won 18 career major championships on the PGA Tour over a span of 24 years
* Jordan Spieth – professional golfer, 2015 Masters Tournament winner with a score of 18 under par
* Tom Weiskopf – professional golfer

Ice hockey

* David Backes (ice hockey), David Backes – professional NHL hockey player
* Mathew Dumba – professional NHL hockey player
* Christian Ehrhoff – professional NHL hockey player
* Jack Eichel – professional NHL hockey player
* Gabe Guentzel – professional ice hockey player
* Jake Guentzel – professional NHL hockey player
* Chris Kreider – hockey player
* Cody Lampl – professional ice hockey player
* Jamie Langenbrunner – NHL and U.S. Olympic hockey player
* Peter Mueller (ice hockey), Peter Mueller – professional NHL hockey player
* Jed Ortmeyer – professional hockey player
* Rob Schremp – professional hockey player
* Jordan Schroeder – ice hockey player
* Dennis Seidenberg – professional NHL hockey player
* Tim Schaller – professional NHL hockey player
* R. J. Umberger – professional NHL hockey player

Soccer

* Walter Bahr – long-time captain of the United States men's national soccer team, U.S. national team, played in the 1950 FIFA World Cup when the U.S. defeated England 1–0
* Nicole Barnhart – Olympic medalist and professional soccer player
* Kyle Beckerman – midfielder
* Justin Braun (soccer), Justin Braun – forward for Chivas USA
* Eric Brunner – soccer player who currently plays for Portland Timbers in Major League Soccer
* Rachel Buehler – Olympic medalist and professional soccer player
* Timothy Chandler – right back for Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga
* Jimmy Conrad – center back
* Dietrich Albrecht – U.S. national team
* Thomas Dooley – long-time member and former captain of the United States national team
* Greg Eckhardt – American soccer player in Finland
* Whitney Engen – professional soccer player
* Brad Friedel – United States men's national soccer team, U.S. National Team, Premier League goalkeeper for Aston Villa F.C., Aston Villa
* Julian Green – professional soccer player
* Marcus Hahnemann – soccer goalkeeper for the United States men's national soccer team, U.S. National Team and Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C., Wovlerhampton Wanderers in the Premier League
* Aaron Hohlbein – soccer player who currently plays for Fort Lauderdale Strikers (2006–2016), Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the North American Soccer League (1968–84), North American Soccer League
* David Horst – soccer player currently playing for Portland Timbers in Major League Soccer
* Kasey Keller – goalkeeper
* Jerome Kiesewetter – Forward (association football), forward currently playing for VfB Stuttgart in the Bundesliga in Germany
* Meghan Klingenberg – professional soccer player
* Jonathan Klinsmann – son of Jürgen Klinsmann, player for LA Galaxy
* Jürgen Klinsmann – professional Association football, football manager notably, Bundesliga club FC Bayern Munich, Bayern Munich and the United States men's national soccer team, United States national team and former player, a naturalized U.S. citizen.
* Ali Krieger – professional soccer player
* Fabian Johnson – professional soccer player for the U.S. national team; born and raised in Berlin
* Steven Lenhart – soccer player for the Columbus Crew SC, Columbus Crew
* Joanna Lohman – professional soccer player
* Fred Lutkefedder – member of the United States men's national soccer team, U.S. soccer team at the 1936 Summer Olympics and Uhrik Truckers, Philadelphia German-Americans of the American Soccer League (1933–83), American Soccer League
* Chris Rolfe – American soccer player playing in Denmark
* Sigi Schmid – Major League Soccer manager
* Chris Seitz – goalkeeper for the Philadelphia Union
* Jonathan Spector – soccer (football) player for the United States men's national soccer team, U.S. National Team and West Ham United F.C., West Ham United in the Premier League. Yanks Abroad. November 9, 2005. Retrieved August 20, 2012.Winner, Andrew (September 19, 2005)
"Spector aims to boost World Cup credentials"
ESPN FC. Retrieved May 17, 2015. Archived fro
the original
on May 15, 2010.
* Seth Stammler – plays for the New York Red Bulls
* Zack Steffen – goalkeeper for Manchester City
* Taylor Twellman – retired professional soccer player
* Abby Wambach – Olympic medalist and professional soccer player
* Andrew Wiedeman – currently plays for FC Dallas in Major League Soccer
* Josh Wolff – forward, currently a free agent
* Gotoku Sakai

Tennis

* Bob Falkenburg – tennis player and 1948 The Championships, Wimbledon, Wimbledon Champion
* Liezel Huber – professional tennis player
* Sam Warburg – tennis player
* John Whitlinger – former professional tennis player
* Tami Whitlinger – former professional tennis player

Boxing, Mixed Martial Arts, Wrestling

* Max Baer (boxer), Max Baer – boxer, List of heavyweight boxing champions, heavyweight boxing champion of the world
* Shayna Baszler – professional wrestler and mixed martial artist, her father is of German descent
* Mac Danzig – professional mixed martial arts fighter and instructor, and is a former lightweight champion for the King of the Cage and Gladiator Challenge mixed martial arts organizations
* Ted DiBiase – former professional wrestler
* Ted DiBiase Jr. – former professional wrestler
* Harry Greb – professional boxer, nicknamed "The Pittsburgh Windmill", he was the American Light Heavyweight Champion, 1922–1923 and World Middleweight Champion, 1923–1926
* April Hunter – professional wrestler, professional wrestling valet and fitness and glamour model
* Nia Jax – professional wrestler
* Brock Lesnar – professional wrestler and MMA fighter
* Sasha Banks, Mercedes Varnado – professional wrestler known in the WWE as "Sasha Banks" and formerly known as "Mercedes KV"
* David Schultz (professional wrestler), David Schultz – retired professional wrestler, known by his ring name "Dr. D"
* Ryan Schultz – professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, currently fighting for the Portland Wolfpack of the International Fight League
* Chael Sonnen – professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, politician and actor
* Gus Sonnenberg – professional wrestler and boxer
* Seth Rollins – professional wrestler
* Jon Heidenreich – former professional wrestler and former football player
*Katarina Waters - professional wrestler

Other sports

* Lisa Aukland – professional bodybuilder and powerlifter
* Earl W. Bascom – professional rodeo cowboy, inductee in several rodeo halls of fame
* Tony Bettenhausen and his race-driving sons Gary Bettenhausen, Gary, Tony Bettenhausen Jr., Tony Jr., and Merle Bettenhausen, Merle; Tony was at times nicknamed "Der Panzer" due to his ancestry and driving style
* Jana Bieger – two-time World Champion artistic gymnast
* Gretchen Bleiler – professional halfpipe snowboarder and pioneer
* Greg Bretz – Olympic snowboarder
* George Brosius – gymnastics teacher associated from 1854 to 1915 with the Milwaukee Turnverein, he served in the Union Army from 1861 to 1864
* Dale Earnhardt – race car driver in NASCAR's top division
* Dale Earnhardt Jr. – semi-retired professional stock car racing driver, team owner, author analyst for ''NASCAR on NBC''
* Gertrude Ederle – Olympic Gold Medal winner and first woman to swim the English Channel
* George Eyser – gymnast who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics with a wooden leg
* Bobby Fischer – Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster and World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion between 1972 and 1975
* Christopher Fogt – Army captain who won a bronze medal at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi as a member of the famed Team Night Train
* Gretchen Fraser – alpine ski racer; first American to win an Olympic gold medal for skiing
* Archie Hahn – sprint (running), sprinter in the early 20th century
* Hans Halberstadt – Olympic fencer">"Hans Halberstadt at the 1928 Olympics,"
West Coast Fencing Archive.
* J. R. Hildebrand – Formula One and IndyCar Series race car driver
* Margaret Hoelzer – Olympic swimmer
* Katie Hoff – Olympic medal-winning swimmer
* Mark Geiger – soccer referee in Major League Soccer in the United States and Canada, as well as CONCACAF and the FIFA World Cup, World Cup
* Harry Greb – professional boxer, nicknamed "The Pittsburgh Windmill", he was the American Light Heavyweight Champion, 1922–1923 and World Middleweight Champion, 1923–1926
* Kasey Kahne – dirt track racing driver and former professional stock car racing driver
* Evel Knievel – motorcycle daredevil
* Henry Laskau – racewalker
* Helene Mayer – Olympic champion fencer
* Kimmie Meissner – U.S. national champion figure skater
* Josef Newgarden – IndyCar Series driver, driving the 21 car for Ed Carpenter Racing
* Jordan Niebrugge – amateur golfer currently playing collegiate golf at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, Oklahoma State University
* Robert Oberst – professional Strongman (strength athlete), strongman
* Michael Phelps – swimmer; has won 16 Olympic medals
* Craig Sager – sports journalist for TBS (American TV channel), TBS and TNT (American TV network), TNT
* Allison Schmitt – swimmer
* Lacy Schnoor – Olympic skier
* Mark Spitz – swimmer and Olympic gold medalist
* Sara Studebaker – biathlon, biathlete who has competed on the World Cup circuit
* Dana Vollmer – swimmer and Olympic gold medalist
* Lindsey Vonn – alpine skier
* Thomas Vonn – alpine skier
* Rudolf Wanderone, Rudolph "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone (1913–1996) – perhaps the best known pool player in the United States
* Dick Weber – bowling professional and a founding member of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA), father of Pete Weber
* Pete Weber (bowler), Pete Weber – bowling professional on the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) Tour
* Richard Weiss – slalom canoer
* Johnny Weissmuller – swimmer, Olympic gold medalist
* Rasa von Werder – bodybuilder
* Waldemar von Zedtwitz – German-born American bridge player and administrator"Von Zedtwitz, Waldemar"
. ''Hall of Fame''. ACBL. Retrieved December 4, 2014.

See also

* German Texan
* List of Germans
* German Canadians
* List of German Texans
* List of Amish and their descendants
* List of German inventors and discoverers
* German Americans in the American Civil War
* German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA

References

;Bibliography
*

External links

German-American Corner: History and Heritage

{{DEFAULTSORT:German Americans
American people of German descent,
German American, Americans
Lists of American people by ethnic or national origin
Lists of German people, Americans
Lists of people by ethnicity