List of German Americans - Historical Figures

Historical Figures

• John Dillinger – Famous bank-robber in the Depression-era United States.
• Buzz Aldrin – astronaut, first human to speak on the Moon
• Neil Armstrong – astronaut, first human set foot on the Moon

• George Atzerodt – assassin

• Laura Bullion (1876–1961) female Old West outlaw
• Warren E. Burger (1907–1995) Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986
• Hendrick Christiansen – trader and explorer
• Willard Eratus Christiansen aka Matt Warner – Old West outlaw, deputy sheriff
• Nicholaus de Meyer – 1676 burgomaster of New York
• 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

• Johann Friedrich Ernst – "Father of German Immigration to Texas", arriving in 1831
• 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
• Ernst Gruene – founded Gruene, Texas
• Frank Gusenburg – gangster and a victim of the Saint Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago, Illinois
• Peter Gusenberg – member of Chicago's North Side Gang, the main rival to the Chicago Outfit
• Bruno Hauptmann – Lindbergh kidnapper
• Friedrich Hecker – revolutionary
• Michael Hillegas – first Treasurer of the United States
• Prince Alexander of Hohenzollern – successor as Head of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
• Jimmy Hoffa – labor union leader and author
• J. Edgar Hoover – first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
• Lena Kleinschmidt – jewel thief
• Fritz Kuhn – German American Bund leader
• Maria Kraus-Boelté – pioneer of 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".
• 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 Kurtz Miller – philanthropist
• Burchard Miller – Texas land pioneer
• Peter Minuit – Director-General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland
• Charles Mohr – pharmacist
• Thomas Dent Mütter – medical researcher and namesake of the Mütter Museum
• Pat Nixon – former First Lady of the United States

• Duncan Niederauer – CEO of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
• Franz Daniel Pastorius – pioneer and founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania
• Molly Pitcher – born Mary Ludwig, American Revolutionary War hero
• Charles Reiser – safecracker
• 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
• Reinhold O. Schmidt – 1950s UFO "contactee"
• 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 "The German" Schweihs – alleged hitman who had been known to work for The Outfit, the organized crime family in Chicago
• Reinhart Schwimmer – gangster and a victim of the Saint Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago, Illinois
• Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels – "Texas-Carl" was an Austro-Hungarian Lieutenant General and founder of the town New Braunfels, Texas
• Benjamin Steitz – Cincinnati, Ohio land pioneer
• Jacob Sternberger – historian and one of the original Forty-Eighters
• Ida Straus – victim of the sinking of the RMS Titanic
• Isidor Straus – former co-owner of Macy's and victim of the sinking of the RMS Titanic
• 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 noble descended from a line of Rhenish Knights and nobles dating back to the 13th century, organized the Adelsverein, to promote German emigration to Texas
• Andrew Von Etter – Boston mobster
• Johann Printz von Buchau – successor of Peter Minuit in New Sweden
• Paul Warburg – banker
• Louis J. Weichmann – chief witnesses for the prosecution in the conspiracy trial of the Abraham Lincoln assassination
• Conrad Weiser – pioneer, farmer, monk, tanner, judge, and soldier
• 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
• David Ziegler – first mayor of Cincinnati. Revolutionary War Veteran and aide to president George Washington
• John Peter Zenger – printer, publisher, editor and journalist in New York City