Germans in Hollywood

The Three Waves of Hollywood Immigration Wave One (The Pioneers): 1910-1931 From the earliest days of American motion picture production a more-or-less constant stream of Austrian, German, and German Swiss emigrés has crossed the Atlantic to influence the...

Ursula Andress

The first “Bond girl” was Swiss “I was supposed to be coming out of the water, like Ursula Andress in DR. NO… How do you relive a moment that is probably one of the most remembered and loved in any Bond film? That kind of scared me.” — Halle Berry, speaking...

Berlin Photos: The Reichstag

Photo Gallery: Das Reichstagsgebäude The Reichstagsgebäude (“imperial diet building”) in Berlin has a long history that reflects German history. Since it first housed the German Diet (parliament) in 1894, it has undergone a fire (1933), World War II damage...

Konrad Zuse: Computer Pioneer

The first programmable, digital computer The German civil engineer and business owner Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (1910-1995) is considered the inventor of the first digital and programmable computers – a feat he first accomplished in 1938, long before anyone else,...

Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens and the 1936 “Nazi Olympics” “Hitler didn’t snub me. It was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” — Jesse Owens, in Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics (Jeremy Schaap, Mariner Books, 2018) James...