Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben from Germany, a former Prussian officer, a major, saved the American Revolution at its absolute nadir in 1777 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
.
Having served under Frederick the Great, the legendary King of Prussia, von Steuben taught the discouraged American soldiers, mostly amateurs, the world-famous German military skills, especially bayonet tactics, strict hygiene, pride and discipline, all this to the utter delight of General George Washington.
.

.
Rising to major general in the American Army, he commanded a third of the American troops at the decisive 1781 Battle of Yorktown, which sealed the U.S. victory.
.
There would be no USA without this German, because our troops were poorly trained, demoralized, and often defeated in battle by British troops until Steuben showed up and turned the brave, idealistic Americans into proper soldiers. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben)
.
Wiki:

One soldier’s first impression of the Baron was “of the ancient fabled God of War … he seemed to me a perfect personification of Mars. The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size, and his strikingly martial aspect, all seemed to favor the idea. He turned the volunteers into a great army.”^[17]

(Btw, it seems pretty likely he was gay, and Wikipedia has a whole section on this, but if true, he was not the limp-wristed kind but very macho, decisive, masculine, and brave — and, as they say nowadays, “straight-acting.”)

Here is an excellent dramatization of his gigantic contribution. The British were professional soldiers and were kicking our volunteer American butts until ol’ Steubie showed up. (Washington fought seven major battles, losing three of them, and one was a draw.)

And believe it or not, but marching, rifle drill and bayonet practice were not merely ceremonial back then. In an age when it took a minute to reload, which was an eternity in close combat,  ONLY when every rifleman simultaneously obeys orders can anyone survive, or win.

.

.

And now the video that, while informative, misses the biggest point of all.

I commented:

How about adding that most Germans were honest? 😉 It is a high-trust society, even now, and it sure was 100-170 years ago.

.

.
I used to work for a German-American foundation, was married to an Austrian (=quasi-German), majored in German and am bilingual.
.
Well, if there HAD been any German crime families, well, it surely would have been well “organized” crime. 😉
.
Nota bene: There were HUGE German populations in urban areas such as St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, a major East-Coast city. Certainly in Philly there were mafias of the other ethnic groups but they did not rub off on the Germans.

There’s even a whole section of the city of Philadelphia called “Germantown,” and a “Deutschtown” in northern Pittsburgh, and an “Over the Rhine” in Cincinnati.
.
Germans in American were like the Germans in Germany, law-abiding and demonstrating a high work ethic (which is also true of kindred germanic peoples such as the Flemish, Dutch and Scandinavians….and there were no mafias with them in America, either).
.
Also, German immigrants entered the U.S. mostly as skilled workers with a vocational training as carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths etc., which made them sought-after on the labor market, and they had low rates of alcoholism.

German-Americans didn’t HAVE to turn to a life of crime, even when they weren’t academics, because they were respected by employers as being honest, smart, reliable, and hard-working.
.
So, sorry, it is kind of amazing that this video, while very informative, left out these key, core German traits to explain why they had no mafias.
.
Germans prospered, not by shameful theft and parasitical “protection” rackets, or loan-sharking, or being pimps, drug dealers,  smugglers, counterfeiters, or “fences” (Hehler in German), but by being valuable citizens….which is why Russian tsars, many Latin American governments, Canada and Australia actively asked Germans to emigrate there.

This is my parallel life, as a German Mennonite teenager in Bolivia… far from the madding crowd, the jews, blax, muzzies, LGBTQs, and Joe Biden…an uncanny resemblance.

.

.
There would still be masses of German-speakers in America today if it had not been for the totally slanderous atrocity propaganda of the media and the Woodrow Wilson administration during 1917-18, such as the utterly disproved lies that German troops under the Kaiser raped Belgian nuns, cut hands off Belgian babies, crucified a captured Canadian officer, and cooked corpses of dead Allied solders to get fat to make soap.
.
Surprise-surprise-surprise — no one ever was held accountable or apologized as 800 German newspapers were shut down over lies, and German clubs, orchestras, theaters, beer gardens and schools were shuttered over atrocities that had never happened.
.
Yet today every American historian of that WWI period admits all this German-bashing was defamatory LIES, but it was all “for a good cause,” you see, all these ethnic libels.
.
WWI, Wilson said, was being fought as “the war to end all wars,” a war for “self-determination of all peoples” (then millions of Germans & Austrians were given in 1919 to hostile Italy, France, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and just ask the Palestinians today about THEIR “self-determination” under the American-armed Israelis)…
.
Oh, and the Treaty of Versailles, Wilson said, would be “a peace without victors.” LOL!
.
No one today would DARE do to the Mexican-Americans (of whom some, sadly, definitely ARE dreadful, organized criminals, such as MS-13 and drug cartels) what was done in 1917….

… the hateful crushing inflicted on the German-Americans, who were demonstrably among the best immigrants America ever received.

Ron Howard, successful film director (real family name “Beckenholdt”) — the beloved “Opie,” son of the sheriff, on “Andy of Mayberry” 

.

…..Germanic women

By the grace of God (and I mean that in earnest), I lived in 2004-05 in Aix-en-Provence in the beautiful south of France.

Once upon a time, Aix was the Roman city of “Aquae Sextiae.” And there was a huge battle there between the Teutons, a Germanic tribe, and the Romans, which the Teutons lost after winning two previous battles. Their men mostly dead, the Teutonic women knew that if they were spared, as the “vanquished,” slavery or even prostitution would be their fate. After all, Vae victis, “Woe to the vanquished.”

But when a Roman soldier jeeringly said these attractive blond females would be carted down to the whorehouses of Rome, the women said HELL, NO.

“We will gladly serve your goddesses in chastity in your temples,

but we are proper married women or virgins.

Never shall we be your whores!”

 

The Romans just sneered. “Suck it up, bitches. You lost; we won, hah-hah-hah.”

So these defiant, outraged,PROUD germanic women, to the astonishment of the Romans, proceeded to hang themselves from wagon wheels or stab themselves to death, after killing their children.

And if you believe in the truth that we have an afterlife, why NOT “exit stage right” rather than be a sex slave to the cruel enemy?

.

….This German-American Marine commanded my dad at the battle of Iwo Jima:

.
.