List of German Americans - Military

Military

• Otto Boehler – United States Army private awarded the Medal of Honor for actions during the Moro Rebellion during the Philippine–American War
• Johann August Heinrich Heros von Borcke – Major in the Confederate army
• George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876) – United States Army cavalry commander
• Thomas Custer – United States Army officer and two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor for bravery during the American Civil War. He was 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 German Rocket Team, brought to the USA 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 USA 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
• Paul A. Frank – Colonel of the German Rangers, 52nd New York Infantry
• 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 8 February 1802. In 1942, the destroyer USS Heermann was named in his honor.
• Nicholas Herkimer – commanding general at Battle of Oriskany, American Revolutionary War
• Daniel Hiester – political and military leader from the Revolutionary War period to the early 19th century
• John Hiester – military leader from the 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)
• Herman Kahn – military strategist and systems theorist
• August Kautz – Brigadier General /Union Army officer
• 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 – M.D., M.S.S.M., M.P.H., Ph.D. (Captain, Medical Corps, USN, Ret.) and a former NASA astronaut
• Marc Mitscher – Vice Admiral in the US Navy and served as commander of the Fast Carrier Task Force in the Pacific in the latter half of World War II.
• Peter Muhlenberg – clergyman, a soldier and a politician of the Colonial, 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.
• John J. Pershing – officer in the United States Army, rose to the highest rank ever held in the US 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 – a Union brigadier general in the American Civil War
• Frederick C. Salomon – a Union brigadier general in the American Civil War
• Alexander Schimmelfennig – American Civil War general in the Union Army
• Harry Schmidt (USMC) – US 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. He is 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 – 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
• Carl Andrew Spaatz – general in World War II
• Adolph von Steinwehr – served as a Union general in the American Civil War
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben – German-Prussian General who served with George Washington in the American Revolutionary War and is 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
• Max Weber – Brigadier General in the Union army during the American Civil War
• 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
• Jurgen Wilson – Union Army officer during the American Civil War
• 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 US Navy, playing a major part in the Vietnam War