Having minored in French and majored in German, the two languages correspond with the mindsets of the two different peoples. When you speak German, you feel somehow stricter, more military, and undaunted. In French I always felt looser and could see the funny side of everything. As Nikola Tesla said, it is all sound and frequency.
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To an American who has learned German but still has a heavy accent: German IS very difficult, even for Germans (!); I referred to this in my post about Christopher Walken.
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People used to always say I resemble Christopher Walken. His father, Paul Wälken, was from Gelsenkirchen, Germany and ran a bakery in Astoria, Queens, NYC, a then German neighborhood. He says he got his strange voice from his father. Germans pause while speaking because sentences have to be mentally organized in advance, with the verb often coming at the very end, like a “Hail Mary” football pass to the end zone. I think this requirement to plan out sentences carries over into all walks of life. Germans plan their work and then work the plan. 
This is part of why in WWII it took the whole world six years to beat ONE country….
This is part of why in WWII it took the whole world six years to beat ONE country…..
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I suppose I could teach you the German and Austrian accents. I did it professionally. Germans actually think I’m German, or Dutch (and, of course, I look the part; my French second wife once called me fondly “mon Waffen-SS” 
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And I learned to speak flawless Tyrolean, a dialect from Kufstein (photo) and Innsbruck that is almost a different language from High German. And I mean by this a mastery of both the accent and the grammar..
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There are books and courses for acquiring a foreign accent, and Broadway and Hollywood actors have been mastering accents for generations. Aussies can and do master a British accent (Russell Crowe in “Master and Commander” or, going back, Errol Flynn in “Robin Hood”).
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Brits can even take on an American cowboy accent (Daniel Craig AKA James Bond in “Cowboys and Aliens”), etc.
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And Martin Sheen, whose father was a Spaniard named Estevez, did pretty well with a Virginia accent as Robert E. Lee.
. 2:56:01-59:42 General Lee upbraids Colonel JEB Stuart for not following important orders
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It’s really not rocket science, but pretty much no one teaches it except to actors, or, as the sole major exception, the CIA and or KGB teach perfect foreign accents to spies to infiltrate the other country. I remember back in 1968 accidentally tuning into an evening broadcast on AM radio of Radio Moscow! The announcer spoke in PERFECTLY accented American English, ending with “Thank you for listening. I’m Vladimir Volkov.” I was astounded!
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In fact, I read once that at parties in England, if things get slow, someone, just for laughs, will start imitating various American accents which they know from all the Hollywood movies or tv shows: Mafia New Jersey Italian; raspy cowboy; Deep Southern drawl, etc.
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This is how actor James Gandolfini really sounded when not in character as mob boss “‘Tony Soprano”:
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Gandolfini in character (on SNL):
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First, understand what the American accent actually is so you can get rid of it. Btw, the American accent does sound, well, kinda doofus in German, like a man talking while chewing gum, because we (and the Brits) double the stressed vowels. 
Our spelling actually reflects this. Take the word “wait.” It is “a” plus “i.” This is accurately two sounds, not one, and not at all some insane English quirky spelling that no one bothered to change ove the centuries. We DO “dipthongize” (double) the syllable. A German would pronounce it in HIS accent as ONE sound, one vowel: “eh” (as in “dehnen” (to stretch). But we as Amis don’t say “WATE”; we say “WAY-eet.” It’s called vowel diphthongization. Or take the word “home.” A German would pronounce it “hohm.” But we say “HO-umm.” It is TWO vowels and two syllables! See? It is just a crime that while teaching foreign languages we do not simultaneously teach the correct accent!
Our spelling actually reflects this. Take the word “wait.” It is “a” plus “i.” This is accurately two sounds, not one, and not at all some insane English quirky spelling that no one bothered to change ove the centuries. We DO “dipthongize” (double) the syllable. A German would pronounce it in HIS accent as ONE sound, one vowel: “eh” (as in “dehnen” (to stretch). But we as Amis don’t say “WATE”; we say “WAY-eet.” It’s called vowel diphthongization. Or take the word “home.” A German would pronounce it “hohm.” But we say “HO-umm.” It is TWO vowels and two syllables! See? It is just a crime that while teaching foreign languages we do not simultaneously teach the correct accent!.
The “Ami” [German nickname for all Amerikaners] accent is kinda cringeworthy to German or French ears, in the same way that a working-class Deep South drawl is kinda cringe to a Yankee (although I do adore a light Southern accent, especially on a lady). “Why do Southerners drag their vowels out like that?”, an educated New Englander might ask.
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Well, we ALL, both Yanks and Rebs, and Londoners and Crocodile Dundee in Australia, come across as drawling to Continentals, making simple, pure, ONE-syllable vowels into double syllables, a quirky thing that, behind our backs, ze Churmans und Ohstrians call “der Kaugummi-Akzent” (the chewing-gum accent)
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Oh, and the Austrians speak nasally, and have only a light stress accent even on stressed syllables. One trick I do is have clients talk in the target accent. I had Japanese MD/PhDs talking like cowboys, which after all the films they have watched was no problem for them. And sink of all ze Hollyvood filmss wiss evil N@zis!
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I used the excellent semi-comedic sports movie “Jerry Maguire” with Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger, and I had the Japanese, who lack about 1/4 of the sounds we have in American English, suddenly sounding like Emerson Winchester the Third, M.D. on “MASH”.
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Btw, this was me on August 17, 2003 on National Public Radio talking about reducing the Rhode Island accent:
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https://johndenugent.com/wp-content/uploads/jdn-rhode-island-accent-npr-17-aug-2003.mp3
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