Famous and Not-So-Famous Americans of German, Austrian, or German-Swiss Ancestry

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North Americans of German, Austrian, or German-Swiss heritage have made significant contributions to many fields of American culture, from the arts to science and engineering. Below is an alphabetical list of notable Americans and Canadians, both living and dead, who were born in German-speaking Europe or had Germanic ancestors. All persons listed have at least a summary. For some personalties you can click on a link to learn even more. This list also includes Austrian and German-Swiss Americans.

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Mann, Heinrich (1871-1950) | Heinrich Mann, like his younger brother Thomas Mann (see below), was a German writer and novelist. His best-known novel is Professor Unrat (1904), which was later the basis for the movie Der Blaue Engel (1930, The Blue Angel), starring Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings. Produced in English and German versions, the film was one of the first sound films. Heinrich Mann was born on 27 March 1871 in the northern Hanseatic city of Lübeck as the first of five children of the prosperous grain merchant Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann and his Brazilian-born wife Júlia da Silva Bruhns. Forced into exile after the Nazis came to power in Germany, Heinrich Mann moved to California. He died on 11 March 1950 in Santa Monica, lonely and without much money, just months before he planned to relocate to East Berlin to become president of the (East) German Academy of Arts. His grave is now in Berlin’s Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof, but when he died in California, Heinrich was first buried in Santa Monica’s Woodlawn Cemetery next to his wife Nelly, who had committed suicide in 1944. (Heinrich also had lost his sister Carla to suicide in 1910.) In 1961 his ashes were moved to East Berlin, but his memorial gravestone in Santa Monica remains. See Famous Graves – Mann for more.

Mann, Thomas (1875-1955) | Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His noted works include Buddenbrooks (1900), Death in Venice (1912), The Magic Mountain (1924), and Felix Krull (1954). Thomas Mann was born on 6 June 1875 in the northern Hanseatic city of Lübeck. His brother Heinrich and three of Mann’s six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became significant German writers. Mann’s father died in 1891, and after that his trading firm was liquidated. The family subsequently moved to Munich. Mann first studied science at a Lübeck Gymnasium (secondary school), then attended the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich as well as the Technical University of Munich, where, in preparation for a journalism career, he studied history, economics, art history and literature. After the Nazis came to power, Thomas Mann and his older brother Heinrich (above) both spent the years after 1933 living in exile, much of that time in the United States. Thomas Mann did not care much for California and he later returned to Europe. He died in Switzerland in 1955 and his grave is in a cemetery near Zurich. See Famous Graves – Mann for more.

Masur, Kurt (1927-2015) | Kurt Masur was an East German orchestra conductor (Gewandhausorchester, Leipzig) who also headed the New York Philharmonic from 1991 to 2002. Masur supported East German anti-government demonstrators in the period leading up to the collapse of the German Democratic Republic and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Born in Brieg, Lower Silesia, Germany (now Brzeg, Poland), Masur studied piano, composition, and conducting in Leipzig. Known as “one of the last old-style maestros,” Masur directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. At the beginning of World War II, Masur was too young to be drafted into the German Wehrmacht, but as the war dragged on and Hitler and his generals became ever more desperate, conscripting males between the age of 16 and 60, 17-year-old Masur found himself a paratrooper in late 1944. Out of his unit of 150 soldiers, only 27 survived, including Kurt Masur. His family lived under a lucky star. Not a single member of Masur’s family perished in the war. – Following the war, in 1946 Masur resumed the music studies he had begun earlier in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), but now at Leipzig’s University of Music and Theatre. After only two years in Leipzig, the 21-year-old left to accept a job as a music coach at the opera house in Halle an der Saale. He would later serve as conductor in Dresden, East Berlin, and Leipzig. In 1970 he became Kapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, serving in that post until 1996. It was there that he conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in celebration of German reunification in 1990. – As political barriers came down, Masur was able to move beyond Germany onto the international scene. From 1991 to 2002 Masur was music director for the New York Philharmonic, where he was credited with bringing much needed change. There was tension during his tenure there, and Masur claimed his leaving was not by choice. His next post was in London, a position he held until 2007. In April 2002, Masur had become music director of the Orchestre National de France, where he served until 2008. On his 80th birthday, 18 July 2007, Masur conducted musicians from both orchestras at a Proms concert in London. In 2012 Masur announced that he was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. Masur died in 2015 at the age of 88 in Greenwich, Connecticut, from complications of that disease. He is buried in Leipzig’s Südfriedhof (South Cemetery).

Maurer, Louis (1832-1932) | Louis Maurer was a German-born American lithographer, and the father of the American painter Alfred Henry Maurer. He was the last surviving artist known to have been employed by Currier and Ives.

Mayer, Jacob Erskine (James Erskine Mayer, 1889-1957) | Erskine Mayer was an American baseball player who played for three different Major League Baseball teams during the 1910s. In his eight-year career, Mayer played for the Philadelphia Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the Chicago White Sox. Mayer was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and was Jewish. His paternal grandparents were Jews who immigrated to the US from Germany. His father Isaac was a concert pianist and music teacher, and composed an opera in Hebrew. His maternal grandmother traced her ancestry back to the Mayflower, and converted to Judaism. His mother was born Henrietta Frankel. Both of his parents were Jewish. A right-handed pitcher, Mayer’s repertoire of pitches included a curveball which he threw from a sidearm angle. Mayer won 20 games in a single season in both 1914 and 1915. He appeared in the 1915 World Series as a member of the Phillies and in the 1919 World Series as a member of the White Sox. He was 91–70 in his career, with a 2.96 ERA.

Mayer, Oscar F. (Oscar Ferdinand Mayer, 1859–1955) | Oscar F. Mayer was a German-American entrepreneur who founded a sausage-making plant and market in Chicago. Eventually his firm, shared with two of his brothers, became one of the largest meat and sausage companies in the US. Born in Kösingen, Germany, now a part of the city of Neresheim, Baden-Württemberg, Oscar did an apprenticeship as a butcher in Nördlingen before emigrating to Detroit, Michigan in 1873, where he lived with a cousin. He was only 14 when he began working at large meat markets and plants in Detroit, and later in Chicago, Illinois. In 1883 Oscar’s brother Gottfried, who had last worked as a butcher in Nuremberg, joined him in Chicago, where the two leased the Kolling Meat Market on Chicago’s Northside. The Oscar F. Mayer & Bro. Store opened in 1883. Catering to the area’s large German immigrant population, the Mayer brothers sold bockwurst, bratwurst, liverwurst, and other meat varieties that proved popular in the neighborhoods around their meat market. Gottfried served as production manager under Oscar. A third Mayer brother, Max, left Germany to join his brothers as the family firm’s financial manager. As the business expanded, the brothers sold sausage under various brand names, including Edelweiss, before settling on the now-famous Oscar Mayer “Yellow Band” name as an indicator of high quality in 1929. By then the firm was being led by Oscar’s son, Oscar G. Mayer (G for Gottfried, 1888-1965). But Oscar F. Mayer remained active in the company until just six weeks before his death, serving as chairman of the board until the end. By that time, the business named after him had grown to 9,000 employees, with facilities in Davenport, Iowa, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia. He died on 11 March 1955, shortly before his 96th birthday. His grave is at the Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum in Chicago. Today the Oscar Mayer brand is part of Kraft Foods. The famous Wienermobile had its debut in 1936. The Oscar Mayer Wiener jingle, written and composed by Richard Trentlage, became a hit in 1963. The company merged with Kraft Foods in 1989.

Maytag, F.L. (1857-1937) | Frederick Louis Maytag I, also known as F.L. Maytag, founded the Maytag Company, which eventually became the Maytag Corporation, later acquired by the Whirlpool Corporation in 2006. Frederick Maytag was born 14 July 1857 near Elgin, Illinois. He was the eldest of 10 children born to German immigrants Amelia Tonebon (1837-1905) and Daniel William Maytag (1833–1900), whose original German surname was Maitag (“May Day”). They were married at Independence, Iowa, in 1856. The family moved to Marshall County, Iowa, in 1868, settling on a farm that remains under Maytag ownership. In 1882 Fred Maytag married Dena Bergman, and they had four children: Elmer H., Louise (Smith), Lewis B., and Freda (Sparey). Around 1880 Fred Maytag left the farm and moved his family to Newton where he worked at a Newton implement business. A year later he was half-owner. He sold his interest in that endeavor and bought a lumberyard in Newton. In 1893 he became a partner in the Parsons Band Cutter & Self Feeder Company. The first washing machine was added to the company’s line in 1907. In 1909 the Maytag Company was organized to produce washing machines. Fred, who stressed that quality was more important than low prices, served as president of the company for about 12 years. In 1921 F. L. turned the presidency over to his second son, Lewis Bergman Maytag, but continued as chairman of the board of directors until his death in 1937.

Mencken, H.L. (1880-1956) | Henry Louis Mencken was the son of German-Americans in Baltimore. He became a famous and controversial journalist and literary critic. His authoritative multivolume work, The American Language, was published between 1919 and 1948. In the Smart Set, the American Mercury, and the Baltimore Sun, Mencken wrote his unflinching, politically incorrect criticisms of American life, to the point of being called “the most hated man in America.” He also wrote about the Germans in America, lamenting the fading of their native language and literature. Among his last written words: “After all these years, I remain a foreigner.”
MORE: H.L. Mencken Biography from The German Way

Merck, George W. (George Wilhelm Herman Emanuel Merck, 1894-1957) | George W. Merck was an American scientist and former president of Merck & Co. He was born on 29 March 1894 in New York City, to George Friedrich (1867-1926) and Friedrike (Schenck) Merck, as one of five children and their only son. His father, born in Darmstadt, had emigrated from Germany with his wife in 1891 to oversee the new offices of E. Merck and Company at 62 Wall Street, the US subsidiary of the German E. Merck firm that had been founded in Darmstadt by Emanuel Merck, George Friedich’s father. George W. was raised in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, where he had access to Thomas Edison’s workshop. He graduated from Harvard College with a B.S. in chemistry in 1915. Merck also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. Plans to pursue an advanced degree in Germany were dashed by the outbreak of World War I. Instead, George W. began work at his father’s company, becoming president in 1925. During World War II he led the War Research Service, which initiated the US biological weapons program with Frank Olson. He was on the cover of Time magazine on 18 August 1952, illustrating a story about the American pharmaceutical industry. Merck was awarded the Medal for Merit for his contribution to the war effort, and the Industry Medal of the American Chemical Society, as well as honorary doctorates from several universities. He served as president of the Manufacturing Chemists’ Association from 1949 to 1952 and was also on the board of the National Science Foundation. Merck died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 9 November 1957 in West Orange, New Jersey. Today Merck & Co., Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Kenilworth, New Jersey. It is named after the Merck family, which originally established the firm when Friedrich Jacob Merck bought a pharmacy (Engel Apotheke) in Darmstadt, Germany in 1668. The company does business as Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) outside the United States and Canada. Since 1917, Merck & Co. in North America has operated separately from its German counterpart (Merck Group).

Mergenthaler, Ottmar (1854-1899) | Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the famous Linotype typesetting machine, first used in 1886 for the New York Tribune. His invention required ten years of hard work and revolutionized the printing of books and newspapers. Mergenthaler was born in Hachtel, Germany. He died in Baltimore, Maryland.

Meusebach, John O. (1812-1897) | Otfried Hans Freiherr von Meusebach was a Prussian bureaucrat, and later an American farmer, politician, member of the Texas Senate, and the founder of Fredericksburg, Texas. Meusebach was born May 26, 1814 in Dillenburg, Duchy of Nassau, to Baron Karl Hartwig Gregor von Meusebach, a judge solicitor, and Ernestine von Meusebach née von Witzleben. Ofried attended parochial school in Roßleben, and later the Mining and Forest Academy at Clausthal-Zellerfeld in the Harz mountains, where he studied geology and natural science. His grandfather took Otfried and his brother Carl on excursions to share their common interest in botany. Otfried later studied law at the University of Bonn in 1832. He transferred to the University of Halle, where he studied natural science. In 1836 he passed his bar examination at Naumburg. Meusebach was appointed administrator of Trier in 1836. He became an assistant judge in 1838 at Berlin and Potsdam. In 1841 he held a legal position in Stettin. Because of his expertise at handling a dispute between Stettin and Anklam, he was soon appointed as Bürgermeister (Mayor) of Anklam. In October 1844 Meusebach contacted Count Castell of the Adelsverein to express his interest in moving to the Republic of Texas in order to pursue his love of geology, botany and horticulture. He had become fascinated by Texas and had been reading everything about the area. At the suggestion of his brother Carl, he read Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic of Texas by William Kennedy and became intrigued by a place named Enchanted Rock. The same book had inspired Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels who had been named Commissioner-General of the Verein’s colonization, but once in Texas, Prince Solms had become disillusioned because of the financial and logistical difficulties of establishing German colonies in Texas. To make a long story short, 32-year-old Meusebach was offered the opportunity to buy shares in the Verein’s Texas colony and help administer it. He set out for Texas in 1845, but soon after arriving in New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, Texas he discovered the enterprise was poorly managed and in disarray. In 1847 he resigned from the Verein, and was elected to represent Bexar, Medina and Comal counties in the Texas State Senate. He returned to Germany in 1851 to visit family. Back in Texas, Meusebach took office on 7 November 1851. His first act as Texas senator was to request that the inaugural address of Governor Peter Hansborough Bell be printed in English, Spanish and German. On September 28, 1852, forty-year-old Meusebach married 17-year-old Austrian-born Countess Agnes of Coreth (1835-1909), daughter of his friend Count Ernst of Coreth. The couple had eleven children, of which only seven lived to adulthood. Otfried Meusebach died on May 27, 1897, on his property in Loyal Valley, and is buried in the family cemetery in Cherry Spring, Texas.

Meyer, Fred G. (Frederick “Fritz” Grubmeyer, 1886-1978) | Fred G. Meyer was an American businessman who founded the Oregon-based Fred Meyer supermarket chain, which had 63 stores in four western states at the time of his death in 1978. He was known for introducing several innovative marketing concepts. Born in Hanover, Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany on 21 February 1886 (not in Brooklyn, as some erroneous bios claim), Frederick Grubmeyer came to the United States at the age of two with his parents and older brother, William, in 1889. He kept his Grubmeyer surname until he married Eva Chatfield Chiles in Seattle in 1919 and changed his name to Fred G. Meyer. Young Frederick Grubmeyer completed his public school education in Brooklyn, New York City up to fifth grade before he quit to help in the family store. Wanting more out of life, Fred left home at the age of 19 and traveled through the American West, briefly prospecting for gold near Nome, Alaska. In 1906 he was in Seattle, where he worked for a small grocery and the Grand Union Tea Company until 1909, before moving to Portland, Oregon. In Portland he began making money as an office broker before opening his own self-service grocery and drug stores. In the 1920s Fred partnered with his brother Henry in operating Piggly Wiggly stores, originally founded in Memphis, Tennessee by Clarence Saunders, who in 1917 patented the idea of a grocery store where customers selected items by themselves, a new concept at the time. (The Lutey Brothers had earlier patented a similar format they named “Marketeria” in Butte, Montana in 1912.) The Portland Piggly Wiggly venture eventually led to Fred and his brother parting ways in 1928, but it was the start of what would later be the successful Fred Meyer chain of supermarkets in Portland and later much of the American West. In 1928 Fred Meyer built the four-story Alderway Building in Portland, that still stands on the corner of Alder Street and Broadway, to house his offices, his own new self-service drug store, and leased office space for other tenants. Despite later losing the Alderway Building, Meyer was a clever businessman who knew how to survive even the Great Depression: offer customers the lowest possible prices. From drugs and toiletries, Meyer expanded into groceries and “one-stop shopping,” not a common concept in the 1930s. He built the first large Fred Meyer market in Portland in 1931. This full-block megastore on Portland’s Sandy Boulevard (“Drugs – Foods – Apparel – Candy…”) opened in June 1931, and it would become the model for all his later Fred Meyer supermarkets in the western USA. Fred G. Meyer died on 2 September 1978, at the age of 92, at his Portland home. He had been dealing with chronic heart disease and breathing difficulties in his last few years. His ashes were scattered in the Salmon River from the Arrah Wanna Bridge in Welches, Oregon. In its obituary, The Oregonian described Meyer as “the venerable merchant whose name and shopping-center empire have been linked for almost 70 years with the city’s growth.” In 1997 Fred Meyer bought Ralph’s in California, and acquired Smith’s Food and Drug of Salt Lake City, though the acquired companies maintained operations under the Ralph’s and Smith’s brands. Fred Meyer merged with Kroger in 1998, but the Fred Meyer store brand is still used.

Meyer, Richard C. (1930-1985) | Richard C. Meyer was an Emmy Award-winning German-American television and film editor. Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Meyer later came to the United States and began his US career editing television series in Hollywood in the 1950s. In the mid-1950s Meyer began editing B-pictures, including Men in War (1957) and Return of the Fly (1959). By the 1960s he had moved up to features with bigger budgets such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Waterloo (1970). He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Film Editing for the miniseries King (1978). He also won the BAFTA Award for Best Editing for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1970, which he shared with John C. Howard.

Miller, Frederick (Friedrich Eduard Johannes Müller, 1824-1888) | Frederick Miller founded the Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1855. Born in Riedlingen, Württemberg, Friedrich Müller learned the art of beer brewing at the court brewery of Hohenzollern Prince Karl Anton in Sigmaringen. He married Josephine Miller in Friedrichshafen, Württemberg in June 1853. A son was born the next year. In 1854 the family emigrated to the United States, spending the first year in New York, then moving to Wisconsin in 1855. Josephine died in April 1860, and Miller married Lisette Gross. They had five children who survived infancy. Three of Frederick’s sons would later run the Miller brewery after his death due to cancer in 1888. Miller was one of six German beer brewers who helped Milwaukee earn the nicknames “Beer City” and “Brew Town” in the 19th century: Blatz, Falk, Gettelman, Miller, Pabst, and Schlitz. Miller beer is still brewed using the yeast strain (Hefestamm) that Miller brought with him from the court brewery in Sigmaringen.

Miller, Henry (Henry Valentine Miller, 1891-1980) | Henry Miller was an American writer and artist of German descent. He was born in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, New York City to Lutheran German parents, Louise Marie (Neiting) and tailor Heinrich Miller. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, stream of consciousness, explicit language, sex, surrealist free association, and mysticism. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, Tropic of Capricorn and The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, which are based on his experiences in New York and Paris (all of which were banned in the United States until 1961). He also wrote travel memoirs and literary criticism, and painted watercolors. Miller lived and worked in Paris from 1930 to 1939. From 1942 until his death in 1980, Miller resided in California, in Big Sur on the Pacific coast after 1944. In February 1963 Miller moved to 444 Ocampo Drive, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California, where he would spend the last 17 years of his life. Miller died of circulatory problems at his home in Pacific Palisades on 7 June 1980, at the age of 88.

Minuit, Peter (1584-1638) | Peter Minuit was the German-born Director-General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland (1626-1631) and the 3rd Governor of New Netherland. Later he founded the Swedish colony of New Sweden on the Delaware Peninsula in North America in 1638. Minuit was born into a Belgian Calvinist family after they had moved from Tournai, Wallonia to Wesel, Duchy of Cleves, in what is now the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Wesel and Cleves (Kleve in German; spelled Cleve before 1935) were then, and still are today, right next to the German-Dutch border on the Rhine.

Muhlenberg, Frederick (1750-1801) | Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg was a minister and politician who was the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Muhlenberg was born in Trappe, Pennsylvania, the son of Anna Maria (Weiser) and Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg. His father, an immigrant from Germany, was considered the founder of the Lutheran Church in North America. His maternal grandfather was Pennsylvania German colonial leader Conrad Weiser. His brother, Peter Muhlenberg, was a General in the Continental Army, and his brother Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst was a botanist. In 1763, together with his brothers, he attended the Latina at the Franckesche Stiftungen in Halle, Germany. In 1769 he attended the University of Halle, where he studied theology. He was ordained by the Pennsylvania Ministerium as a minister of the Lutheran Church on October 25, 1770. He preached in Stouchsburg, Pennsylvania, and Lebanon, Pennsylvania, from 1770 to 1774, and in New York City from 1774 to 1776. When the British entered New York at the onset of the American Revolutionary War, he returned to Trappe. He died in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on 4 June 1801. His grave is in the Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster, also the burial place of James Buchanan, the 15th president of the US. Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, was named for Frederick’s father, Henry (Heinrich) Melchior Mühlenberg.

Muench, David (1936- ) | David Muench is a landscape and nature photographer known for his striking views of the American western landscape. Born in Santa Barbara, California, David Muench is the son of nature photographer Josef Muench (1904-1998), who was born in Schweinfurt, Bavaria. Josef followed his brother Emil to Detroit, Michigan in 1928. David was inspired by his father to also become a nature photographer. His work has appeared in more than 60 “coffee table” photography books and in numerous magazines, posters, and private collections. His first Arizona Highways magazine cover was published in January 1955, when he was still in high school. Continuing the family tradition, David’s son, Marc Muench, is a successful photographer in his own right, specializing in landscape and outdoor action photography. His daughter, Zandria, is a freelance photographer, specializing in animals, nature, and landscape.
WEB: The First Two Generations of Muench Photographers – from tanguayphotomag.biz (Dec. 2020)
WEB: David Muench – Fine Art Photography – Biography and photo books
WEB: Muench Photography Inc. – Custom prints

Mundt, Karl E. (1900-1974) | Karl Earl Mundt was an American educator and a Republican member of the United States Congress, representing South Dakota in the United States House of Representatives (1939–1948) and in the United States Senate (1948–1973). Mundt was born in Humboldt, South Dakota on 3 June 1900. He was the son of Ferdinand John Mundt (1875–1947) and Rose (Schneider) Mundt (1874–1965), both of whom were the descendants of German immigrants. The Karl E. Mundt National Wildlife Refuge in South Dakota was named in his honor when it was established in 1974. The Karl E. Mundt Foundation, established in Mundt’s honor in 1963, awards prizes for essays and oratorical contests, sponsors seminars and public lectures, and helps support the annual Karl E. Mundt Debate Tournament and Karl E. Mundt Dakota Invitational Oral Interpretation Contest in South Dakota.

Murnau, F.W. (Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe, 1888-1931) | The German film director F.W. Murnau worked only briefly in Hollywood (Sunrise, 1927) before being killed in an auto accident in Santa Barbara, California. His best-known film is the silent classic Nosferatu (1922), a Dracula film that influenced all that followed. He also worked with the German actor Conrad Veidt (Casablanca) on five silent pictures in the 1920s, including Der Januskopf (1920, an early Jekyll/Hyde film, now lost), Sehnsucht/Desire (1921, also lost) and Der Gang in die Nacht (1921). Also see: Murnau’s grave in Germany.

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Nast, Thomas (1840-1902) | The famous German-American political cartoonist Thomas Nast is credited with inventing the elephant icon of the Republican Party and helping to create the modern image of Santa Claus. Nast was born in Landau in der Pfalz on 27 September 1840. He was only six years old when he arrived in New York City with his sister and their mother. By age 15 he was working as an illustrator for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. – MORE: A full Thomas Nast Bio from the German Way

Nebenzal, Seymour (Seymour Nebenzahl, 1899-1961) | Seymour Nebenzahl (usually as Nebenzal, no h, in the US after 1938) was an American-born Jewish-German film producer. He produced 46 films between 1927 and 1961. Born in New York City on 22 July 1899, Nebenzahl’s German father, Heinrich Nebenzahl (1870-1938), sent him to England as a young man. Seymour later worked as a real estate broker and founded the Bankhaus S. Nebenzahl & Co. in Berlin. In 1925 he and his father established Heinrich Nebenzahl & Co. GmbH. Two years later, Heinrich Nebenzahl and the Austrian Richard Oswald cofounded Nero-Film AG. Seymour Nebenzahl not only sat on the advisory board but also served as the head of production. In June 1930 Seymour founded his own production company in Berlin, Nero Tonfilm GmbH (Nero Sound Film), just as the industry was switching from silent to sound pictures. Working with directors such as Georg Wilhelm Pabst and Fritz Lang, Nero-Film soon became a leading German film studio. Under Seymour Nebenzahl’s leadership, Nero-Film released most of the classic films of the Weimar Era by Germany’s top directors: Die Büchse der Pandora (1929), Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1929), Westfront 1918 (1930), Die 3-Groschen-Oper (1931), Kameradschaft (1931), M (1931), Die Herrin von Atlantis (1932), and Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933). With the advent of the Nazi government in Germany in 1933, Nebenzahl was forced to flee the country and find work elsewhere, first in Paris (with other German and European exiles) and then in Hollywood, like may other Jewish exiles. But unlike most of the others, the US-born Nebenzahl had retained his US citizenship, making it easier for him to enter the USA. In 1939 he produced his first American film, We Who Are Young (1940), directed by Harold S. Bucquet, written by Dalton Trumbo, and starring Lana Turner. His other Hollywood productions include Hitler’s Madman (1943), Summer Storm (1944), Whistle Stop (1945), The Chase (1946), Siren of Atlantis (1948), M (1951, a remake of the 1931 German film), and Girl from Hong Kong (1961). Seymour Nebenzahl died of a heart attack at his Munich home on 23 September 1961. He had returned to West Germany shortly before his death. Seymour Nebenzahl married Else Jacoby in 1920. Their son, Harold Nebenzahl (1922-2019), a writer and film producer in Los Angeles, was born in Berlin.

Neiman, Carrie Marcus (Carrie Marcus, 1883-1953) | Carrie Marcus Neiman was an American businesswoman and one of the co-founders of Neiman Marcus, a luxury department store. Carrie Marcus was born on 3 May 1883 in Louisville, Kentucky to Jewish German immigrants Delia (Bloomfield) and Jacob Marcus, a cotton broker. In 1895 the family moved to Hillsboro, Texas. Carrie did not receive a formal secondary education, but she enjoyed a cultured home environment with an excellent family library, a European atmosphere, and the appreciation of music. She read German periodicals and devoured European fashion magazines. In 1899 she moved to Dallas and got a position as a blouse buyer and saleswoman at A. Harris and Company, a local department store. She was a conscientious worker and by age 21 was among the best-paid working women in the city. She met Abraham Lincoln (A.L./”Al”) Neiman in Dallas, and they married shortly after, on 25 April 1905. Carrie’s brother, Herbert Marcus Sr., a former buyer with Dallas’ Sanger Brothers department store, left that job to team up with his wife Minnie, and his sister and her husband to establish a sales promotion business, the Neiman-Marcus Sales Firm, based in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1907 their success had them facing two alternatives: accept a buyout or promote a new, risky product named Coca-Cola. The family sold their business for $25,000 and returned to Dallas to start an entirely new type of business, perhaps just as risky: a high-end, luxury department store. In preparation, Carrie had traveled to New York and Paris to select fashions that met her standards of simplicity and elegance. The new Neiman Marcus store opened its doors on 10 September 1907. Its success proved they were offering exactly what wealthy Texans were looking for. Offering more sophisticated, exclusive fashion than previously available anywhere in Texas, the store’s inventory was completely sold out in weeks, and despite economic turbulence, the operation was off to a grand start, until… a fire destroyed the store in 1914. But by the end of the year, Neiman Marcus opened its new, permanent location at the corner of Main Street and Ervay Street. Along with colleagues, Carrie Neiman helped establish the store’s high reputation in Dallas and throughout the nation. In 1928 Carrie divorced her unfaithful husband. She and her brother bought out Mr. Neiman’s shares. Carrie began hosting fashion shows in the stores during the 1930s, and established the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award for outstanding fashion designers in 1938, elevating the store’s status to an arbiter of couture. In 1950 her brother Herbert died and she became the chairman of the board of directors. She had long resisted any expansion of Neiman Marcus outside of Dallas, but she eventually approved of the Preston Road Neiman Marcus branch store, the first store outside of Downtown Dallas, not long before her death. Carrie Marcus Neiman died on 6 March 1953 at the age of 58 of complications from pleurisy and was laid to rest in the Temple Emanu-El Cemetery in Dallas.

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Today the Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. has over 37 locations all across the US, and also owns the Bergdorf Goodman department stores. The Group is now owned by the Toronto-based Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Los Angeles–based Ares Management. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2020, due to high debts and the Covid-19 pandemic. On 25 September 2020 the company reported a restructuring plan eliminating more than $4 billion of debt and $200 million of annual interest expense. It also has a new board of directors. The 114-year-old company’s new owners, which include PIMCO, Davidson Kempner Capital Management, and Sixth Street Partners LLC are funding a $750 million exit financing package.

Neumann, Kurt (1908-1958) | Kurt Neumann was a German-born Hollywood film director who specialized in science-fiction movies in the 1950s, including The Fly (1958), his very last film. Neumann was also the coproducer and principal director of some of the Tarzan movies produced by Sol Lesser 1945–1954. He directed three of the Tarzan films for RKO that starred Austrian-born Johnny Weissmuller. Born in in Nuremberg, Germany on 5 April 1908, Neumann studied music in Berlin and other German cities in the 1920s before directing his first film short. Neumann originally came to the US in the early talkie era, hired to direct German-language versions of Hollywood films. Once he mastered English and established himself as technically proficient in filmmaking, as a Carl Laemmle protégé, Neumann directed such low-budget second features as The Big Cage (1932) and Secret of the Blue Room (1933). Neumann directed Johnny Weissmuller in three Tarzan films: Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946), Tarzan and the Huntress (1947). Later he was the director for Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953), starring Lex Barker. Neumann also directed some films in West Germany in the mid-1950s, both for the German market and a couple of USA-West Germany coproductions. His other films include: Island of Lost Men (1939), Brooklyn Orchid (1942), and Rocketship X-M (1950). Neumann never got to enjoy the success of the last film he directed. He died of natural causes on 21 August 1958, only five weeks after the release of The Fly with Vincent Price, a film now considered a Hollywood sci-fi classic.

Neutra, Richard Joseph (1892-1970) | The Jewish Austrian American architect Richard Neutra came to the United States in 1923 to work in Chicago with Frank Lloyd Wright and later with other American architects. Working primarily in Southern California, Neutra became known for his own unique, modernist designs in steel and concrete after his earlier work with houses, using natural materials. Born in Vienna on 8 April 1892, Neutra attended school in Vienna, and later studied under Max Fabiani and Karl Mayreder at the Vienna University of Technology (1910–1918). He also attended the private architecture school of Adolf Loos. In June 1914, Neutra’s studies were interrupted by the World War when he was ordered to Trebinje, Serbia (now Bosnia-Herzegovina) in an Austrian campaign against the Serbs. He later complained about the way the Serbs were maltreated. After the war, Neutra went to Switzerland and Germany. In Berlin he worked as an assistant to architect Erich Mendelsohn. In 1922 he married Dione Niedermann (1902–1990), whom he had met in Zurich. The daughter of an architect, Dione was ten years younger than Neutra. They had three sons. Neutra went to the US in 1923 and became a naturalized US citizen in 1929. He worked briefly for Frank Lloyd Wright before accepting an invitation from his close friend Rudolf Schindler to work and live in California. Neutra’s first work in Los Angeles was in landscape architecture. Later he specialized in designing houses for wealthy clients. He later established his own architectural office in California, later together with his son Dion (1926-2019; Richard & Dion Neutra Architecture) in Silver Lake. Neutra died of heart failure on 6 April 1970 in Wuppertal, Germany during a European lecture tour. His ashes are in Los Angeles, scattered in the family’s backyard at the site of the Neutra architectural offices in Silver Lake (donated to Cal Poly Pomona).

Newton, Helmut (Helmut Neustädter, 1920-2004) | Helmut Newton was a noted German fashion photographer, originally from Berlin-Schöneberg. Born into a Jewish family, his mother was Klara “Claire” (née Marquis) and his father was Max Neustädter, a button factory owner. With the advent of the Nazi regime in Germany, his father lost his factory, and his parents fled to Argentina in 1938. Later that year, the 18-year-old Helmut sailed separately from Trieste to Singapore, where he was able to find work briefly as a press photographer. The British authorities interned Newton briefly before sending him to a POW camp in Australia in 1940. Released in 1942, he spent the rest of the war years in Australia. In 1945 Newton opened a photo studio in Melbourne. In 1946 he married the Australian actress June Browne (screen name: June Brunell), who would remain his wife until his death. The following year he became an Australian citizen. His fashion photography career took off in the 1950s when he began working for French and German magazines. In following years he worked in London, Paris, Los Angeles, and other cities. Although a 1970 heart attack slowed him down, he went on to revolutionize fashion photography by foregoing the studio in favor of natural outdoor settings. Newton was infamous for his stylish photos of leggy women (often in the nude) and erotic, kinky fashion photos. In his later life, Newton lived in both Monte Carlo and Los Angeles, where he wintered at the Chateau Marmont, something he and his wife had done every year since 1957. Newton died following a heart attack on 23 January 2004 while driving his Cadillac on Marmont Lane from the Chateau Marmont. His ashes lie in the III. Städtischer Friedhof in Berlin-Schöneberg, not far from where he was born, and only three plots away from fellow Berliner Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992).

Nichols, Mike (Igor Mikhail Peschkowsky, 1931-2014) | Mike Nichols was an American film and theater director, producer, actor, and comedian. He was noted for his ability to work across a range of genres and for his aptitude for getting the best out of actors regardless of their experience. Nichols began his career in the 1950s with the comedy improvisational troupe The Compass Players, predecessor of The Second City, in Chicago. He then teamed up with his improv partner, Elaine May, to form the comedy duo Nichols and May. Their live improv act was a hit on Broadway, and the first of their three record albums won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. – Nichols was born on 6 November 1931 in Berlin, Germany, the son of Brigitte (née Landauer) and Pavel Peschkowsky, a physician. His father was born in Vienna, Austria, to a Russian-Jewish immigrant family. Nichols’s father’s family had been wealthy and lived in Siberia, leaving after the Russian Revolution, and settling in Germany around 1920. Nichols’s mother’s family were German Jews. His maternal grandparents were Gustav Landauer, a leading theorist on anarchism, and author Hedwig Lachmann. Nichols was a third cousin twice removed of scientist Albert Einstein, through Nichols’ mother.

Niebuhr, Reinhold (Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892–1971) | Reinhold Niebuhr was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America’s leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century. Niebuhr is best known for his work relating the Christian faith to the realities of modern politics and diplomacy. Niebuhr was born on 21 June 21 1892 in Wright City, Missouri, the son of German immigrants Gustav Niebuhr and his wife, Lydia (née Hosto). His father was a German Evangelical (Lutheran) pastor; his denomination was the American branch of the established Prussian Church Union in Germany. It is now part of the United Church of Christ. When America entered the First World War in 1917, Niebuhr was the unknown pastor of a small German-speaking congregation in Detroit (it dropped German in 1919). All adherents of German-American culture in the United States and Canada came under attack for suspicion of having dual loyalties. Niebuhr repeatedly stressed the need to be loyal to America, and won an audience in national magazines for his appeals to German Americans to be patriotic. Niebuhr died on 1 June 1971 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. During his lifetime, Niebuhr was awarded several honorary doctorates. In 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Niebuhr the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Nimitz, Chester W. (Chester William Nimitz, 1885-1966) | Chester W. Nimitz was a fleet admiral of the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II. Nimitz, a German Texan, was born the son of Anna Josephine (Henke) and Chester Bernhard Nimitz on 24 February 1885, in Fredericksburg, Texas, where his grandfather’s hotel is now the Admiral Nimitz State Historic Site. His rheumatic father had died six months earlier. In 1890 Anna married William Nimitz (1864-1943), her late husband’s brother. Chester Nimitz was greatly influenced by his Bremen-born paternal grandfather, Charles Henry Nimitz (1826-1911), a former seaman in the German Merchant Marine, who taught him valuable life lessons. Although Nimitz had first applied to West Point in hopes of becoming an army officer, no appointments were available. But he was able to gain an appointment to the Naval Academy from Texas’s 12th congressional district in 1901, and he graduated with distinction on 20 January 1905, seventh in a class of 114. After serving in several naval command positions, in the summer of 1913 Nimitz, who spoke fluent German, studied engines at the Machinenfabrik-Augsburg-Nürnberg (M.A.N.) diesel engine plants in Nuremberg, Germany, and Ghent, Belgium. Returning to the New York Navy Yard, he became executive and engineer officer of the fleet oil tanker Maumee, at her commissioning on 23 October 1916. After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Nimitz was chief engineer of the Maumee while the vessel served as a refueling ship for the first squadron of US Navy destroyers to cross the Atlantic. Ten days after the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Rear Admiral Nimitz was selected by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to be the commander-in-chief of the United States Pacific Fleet. Nimitz immediately departed Washington for Hawaii and took command there. He was promoted to the rank of admiral, effective 31 December 1941. Following horrible battles against the Japanese in the Pacific over the next few years, Nimitz helped develop tactics that led to the final defeat of the enemy. Now a fleet admiral, the highest rank in the US Navy, on 2 September 1945, Nimitz signed as representative of the United States when Japan formally surrendered on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. After the war, since the rank of fleet admiral is a lifetime appointment, he remained on active duty for the rest of his life, with full pay and benefits. He and his wife, Catherine, moved to Berkeley, California. After he suffered a serious fall in 1964, he and Catherine moved to US Naval quarters on Yerba Buena Island in the San Francisco Bay. After suffering a stroke in 1965 and being treated, Nimitz died at home on the evening of 20 February 1966 at Quarters One on Yerba Buena Island. Nimitz was buried with full military honors at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.

Noether, Emmy (1882-1935) | Amalie Emmy Noether was a Jewish German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She discovered Noether’s theorem, which is fundamental in mathematical physics. Emmy Noether was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl and Norbert Wiener as the most important woman in the history of mathematics. As one of the leading mathematicians of her time, she developed theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether’s theorem explains the connection between symmetry and conservation laws. She was born on 23 March 1882 in the Franconian Bavarian town of Erlangen; her father was the mathematician Max Noether. She had three younger brothers. Emmy Noether, the name she used all her adult life, originally planned to teach French and English after passing the required examinations, but instead studied mathematics at the University of Erlangen, where her father lectured. Despite the many barriers to women in academia at that time, Emmy Noether became a respected member of the Göttingen mathematics department (after having to work without pay in the beginning). In 1933, when the Nazis began dismissing Jews from university positions, Noether moved to the United States to take up a position at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania where she taught, among others, doctoral and post-graduate women, many of whom would later have distinguished academic careers of their own. At the same time, she lectured and performed research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1935 Noether underwent surgery for an ovarian cyst. Despite signs of a recovery, she died four days later at the age of 53. A few days after Noether’s death her friends and associates at Bryn Mawr held a small memorial service. In the months that followed, written tributes began to appear around the globe: Albert Einstein joined Herman Weyl, Pavel Alexandrov, and others in paying their respects. Her body was cremated and the ashes interred under the walkway around the cloisters of the M. Carey Thomas Library at Bryn Mawr.

Nowitzki, Dirk (1978- ) | Dirk Werner Nowitzki is a retired German-born NBA former basketball star who formerly played for the Dallas Mavericks. He currently serves as a special advisor for the Mavericks. Born and raised in Würzburg, Germany, Dirk Nowitzki (“Dirkules”) is the first German/European player to be voted MVP in the NBA (2007 and 2011). The 7-foot-tall German (2.13 m) has a mother who played pro basketball in Germany, but he started out with handball and tennis before switching to basketball. Nowitzki played for the Mavericks for 21 years, from 1998 to 2019, making him the only player to spend his entire career in the NBA playing that long for a single franchise. He is only the fourth German to play in the NBA, following Uwe Blab, Christian Welp, and Detlef Schrempf (who also played for Dallas in the 1980s). In 2010 Nowitzki met Jessica Olsson, the sister of twin Swedish footballers Martin Olsson and Marcus Olsson. The couple married on 20 July 2012 at Nowitzki’s home in Dallas. They have a daughter (born 2013) and two sons (2015 and 2016). Though Nowitzki has considered becoming a US citizen in the past, he remains a German national.
WEB: Dirk Nowitzki – Wikipedia

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Oelrichs, Hermann (1850-1906) | Hermann Oelrichs was an American businessman, multimillionaire, and agent of Norddeutsche Lloyd shipping. Oelrichs was born on 8 June 1850 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the son of German-born Henry Ferdinand Oelrichs (1810–1875), a senior partner in the firm of Oelrichs & Lurman, and Julia Matilda (née May) Oelrichs (1819–1879), who was born in Washington, DC. Hermann Oelrichs was the grandson of Gesche Catharina (née Holler) Oelrichs and Johann Gerhard Oelrichs, a German merchant in Bremen. The Oelrichs came to America from Bremen around 1830. In 1889, the almost 40-year-old Oelrichs met Theresa Alice Fair (“Tessie”), daughter of United States Senator and Comstock Lode millionaire James Graham Fair, while playing tennis at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island. They married a year later in 1890. They had one sone, Hermann Oelrichs Jr. (1891–1948). Hermann Oelrichs Sr. died on 1 September 1906 aboard the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Große while sailing across the Atlantic. After his body was returned to the United States, his remains were interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City. He left his full estate to his brother Charles May Oelrichs, thinking that Tessie would be content with her own fortune, but she contested the will. Eventually, they settled the dispute and Tessie received half of the estate. His widow died in Newport on November 22, 1926.

Olbermann, Keith (1959- ) | Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American sports and political commentator and writer. He was born on 27 January 1959 in New York City, the son of Marie Katherine (née Charbonier), a preschool teacher, and Theodore Olbermann, a commercial architect. He has partial German ancestry on both his father’s and mother’s sides. Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. From March 2003 to January 2011 Olbermann hosted the weeknight political commentary program “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC. He received attention for his pointed criticism of right-wing and conservative politicians and public figures. Over the years Olbermann has had turbulent relations with his employers, and his strong opinions of rival commentators, most notably with Bill O’Reilly, whom Olbermann routinely dubbed the “Worst Person in the World,” have led to firings and several job changes. Olbermann is a dedicated baseball fan and historian of the sport, with membership in the Society for American Baseball Research. In 1973, when he was 14 years old, The Card Memorabilia Associates (TCMA) published his book The Major League Coaches: 1921–1973. Olbermann wrote the foreword to the 2009 Baseball Prospectus Annual. In March 2009 Olbermann began a baseball-related blog entitled Baseball Nerd. He has also written a series of articles on baseball cards for the Sports Collectors Digest.

Oppenheimer, J. Robert (1904-1967) | J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Manhattan Project. He was later known as the “father of the atomic bomb.” He later remarked that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” In August 1945 the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer was born in New York City on April 22, 1904 to Julius Oppenheimer, a wealthy Jewish textile importer, and Ella Friedman, a painter. Julius Oppenheimer had immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1888. He came to the US with no money, no university education, and no knowledge of English. He got a job at a textile company and within a decade was an executive of the company. His wife Ella was from Baltimore. The Oppenheimers were non-observant Ashkenazi Jews. After the war, in the 1950s, Oppenheimer’s past associations had with people and organizations affiliated with the Communist Party, led to the revocation of his security clearance in a much-written-about hearing in 1954. Effectively stripped of his direct political influence, he continued to lecture, write and work in physics. Nine years later, President John F. Kennedy awarded (and Lyndon B. Johnson presented) him with the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation.

Osterhaus, Peter (1823-1917) | Peter Joseph Osterhaus was a German-American Union Army general in the American Civil War and later served as a diplomat. Osterhaus was born in Koblenz, Rhenish Prussia, the son of Eleanora (Kraemer) and Josef Adolf Oisterhusz. He attended the Berlin Military Academy and after serving for some time as a Prussian Army officer and finding himself on the losing side in the Revolutions of 1848, he immigrated to the United States in 1858 and settled in St. Louis, Missouri. He served in the Civil War as a major and later brigadier general. He fought in and led campaigns in various battles, from Vicksburg to Atlanta. He left the service in January 1866. He was appointed United States Consul at Lyons, France, but subsequently made his home in Germany, at Duisburg. Osterhaus died in Duisburg and was buried in Koblenz, Germany at “Der Hauptfriedhof Koblenz” (the main cemetery). The crypt no longer exists. Ruined by land shifts in 1969, it was then abandoned. In 2012 a commemorative marker was erected at the old site, jointly funded by the city of Koblenz and Osterhaus descendants.

Oswald, Gerd (Gerd Gunther Ornstein, 1919-1989) | Gerd Oswald was a German film director, producer, and screenwriter for American films and television series. Born in Berlin on 9 June 1919, Oswald was the son of the Austrian film director Richard Oswald (Richard Ornstein, 1880-1963) and the German actress Käthe (Paar) Oswald. He worked as a child actor before emigrating via Austria, France, and the Netherlands to the United States in 1938 with his parents and his sister Ruth. Early production jobs at low-budget Hollywood studios like Monogram Pictures prepared Oswald for a directorial career. His film credits include A Kiss Before Dying (1956), Valerie (1957), Crime of Passion (1957), Brainwashed (1960, West Germany, Schachnovelle), and Bunny O’Hare (1971). Oswald’s television credits include Perry Mason, Blue Light, Bonanza, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive, Star Trek, Gentle Ben, It Takes a Thief, Rawhide, and The Twilight Zone (1985 TV series). Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 know Oswald as the director of the 1966 film Agent for H.A.R.M. He was also the uncredited second-unit director of The Longest Day (1962) responsible for staging the parachute drop scenes into Sainte-Mère-Église, France on D-Day, during the Normandy landings of World War II. Gerd Oswald died of cancer in Los Angeles on 22 May 1989 at the age of 69. His grave is at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Covina, California.

Ottendorfer, Oswald (Valentin Oswald Ottendorfer, 1826-1900) | Oswald Ottendorfer was a German-speaking Moravian-born journalist associated with the development of the German-language New Yorker Staats-Zeitung into a major newspaper while serving as its editor and publisher from 1859 to 1900. Ottendorfer was the son of a manufacturer, the youngest of six children. He was sent to live with a married sister in Brunn (Brno). There he studied the classics at a local academic secondary school. At the age of 20, he left to study law at the University of Vienna, and then transferred to the University of Prague to learn the Czech language. Later Ottendorfer was caught up in the revolutionary fervor of 1848 in Vienna and Schleswig-Holstein. Many of his fellow revolutionaries were captured or killed, but Ottendorfer managed to escape. He fled to the Bohemian frontier, and from there to Saxony. He subsequently became involved in the 1849 uprisings in Saxony and Baden, after the failure of which, he fled to Switzerland. Faced with possible execution if he gave himself up to the government in Vienna, he chose to emigrate to New York City, where he served a term as a member of the New York City Board of Aldermen and as a member of the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York. He also served three times as an elector of the United States Electoral College. In addition to his political and journalistic pursuits, Ottendorfer was a notable philanthropist in both Europe and the United States. Today he is best remembered as the donor whose contribution founded the Ottendorfer Public Library in Manhattan, which bears his name.

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