New museum documents German influence in US - Feature

Wed, 24 Mar 2010
Frank Brandmaier

Washington - Perhaps not at first glance, but certainly on closer inspection, it is clear that German influence is ubiquitous in the United States.

The capital of North Dakota, for example, is Bismarck; the state of Kentucky's is Frankfort. German immigrants named the places they settled after the German cities they left: Berlin, Hamburg and Neu Braunfels.

Some places had so many German settlers that they were dubbed Germantown. Around 1900, Little Germany on Manhattan's Lower East Side was the third-largest German-speaking city after Berlin and Vienna.

Even the name Presley - as in Elvis - derives from the German surname Pressler.

About one-sixth or 50 million of the roughly 300 million Americans have roots in Germany or another German-speaking country. There are museums in the US dedicated to their origins, history and stories, but they are at best small-scale regional institutions.

"Until now there has been no national museum for German immigration that covered the subject comprehensively," said Ruediger Lentz, director of the new German-American Heritage Museum, whose mission is to do just that.

The museum in Washington opened to the public in March after two years of planning.

The German-American Heritage Museum fills about 300 square meters inside a Victorian house built in 1888 by German emigrant and businessman John Hockemeyer in the US capital's historic Penn Quarter, once the pulse of German-Jewish life.

The two national colors black, red and gold and red, blue and white swirl into one another on the walls. A 15-meter-long chronology of more than 400 years of German-American history serves as a focal point and historical guide. Highlights along the chronology are illustrated by historical photographs and explained in concise texts.

Ten chapters of particular importance, such as the participation of Germans on both sides of the American Revolution at the end of the 18th century and the stories of people who fled Nazi Germany, invite visitors to deepen their knowledge.

Changing exhibits tell of German immigrant stories and tradition- rich German-American clubs whose umbrella association, the German- American Heritage Foundation, is also a supporter of the museum. A multimedia kiosk in the middle of the museum reports on the Germany of today and about the museum's well-known partners, the immigration museum on New York's Ellis Island, the BallinStadt emigration museum in Hamburg and the German emigration museum in Bremerhaven.

"We take up where BallinStadt and the German emigration museum leave off," said Lentz.

"We want to tell the stories of German immigrants and make them interesting."

As part of a research project, Americans with German roots are being invited to tell their stories. The museum will archive them in audio-visual format and evaluate them.

"We hope to be able to collect thousands of voices in the course of a year," Lentz said.

The 62-year-old director is convinced that Americans will take interest in the museum. On its Facebook page, more than 700 people registered themselves as friends of the museum within a six-week period, and the number is growing.

"There is a need for information that we can meet," Lentz said, adding that he is absolutely convinced that the museum will be a success.

He's not bothered that the material presented in the museum fails to match that of other museums. Lentz worked on the project for more than two years on behalf of the German-American Heritage Foundation, writing all the texts in the exhibit himself while maintaining his job at Deutsche Welle. A staff of 20 people, including students and teachers, volunteered their time, while a designer looked after the professional layout of the show.

"We did everything ourselves," said Lentz.

Otherwise, setting up the exhibit would have cost four times as much. The foundation had previously acquired and expanded the house.

Once things are up and running, four main salaried employees will comprise the museum's core team, financed by donations and contributions from the foundation. There are no long-term state grants.

Already, the museum will have to close a 200,000-dollar gap in the annual budget, the director said. Renting out the rooms for events should balance it out, Lentz said, shrugging his shoulders with a laugh.

"I view it as a challenge," he said, flashing a bit of American can-do spirit. "I am convinced that the museum will be an economic success."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/315520,new-museum-documents-german-influence-in-us--feature.html.