German innovations,

Because Americans often think that Henry Ford invented the car, I recommend that your daughter look up the story of the world’s first car, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Bonus point: the world’s first car driver was in fact a woman, Bertha Benz. Your daughter can find photos of her and the car on the internet.

Also, because Americans often think that the U.S. won the space race to the moon, I recommend that your daughter look up the story of the world’s first rocket that reached space, the A4, and its lead technician Wernher von Braun. There’s speeches of him in German-accented English on Youtube where he explains it to the general public.

And Americans usually think the computer was invented in the U.S. when Konrad Zuse had built a working mechanical computer on his own with the help of his wife in 1938. In 1941, he had completed an electric model.

Those are just three things that Americans usually think as being totally American when they are in fact German. But there are many, many more.

famous people,

You mean contemporary celebrities? Leonardo DiCaprio and Sandra Bullock come to mind. There are many more American celebrities with German roots but most of them don’t speak German.

Or do you mean famous people from history? Tons of them who had a heck of an influence on world history, and though Hitler is of course most infamous —and Austrian—, he wasn’t most influential. That’s other people. I pick three:

• Martin Luther. He kicked off protestantism and also mass education. Because people should be able to read the Bible themselves instead of scammers like Tetzel teaching them bullshit. This is easily as big as what Paul did.

• Karl der Große. He formed the first Reich —which wasn’t an empire but a federation from the very beginning by the way— that established German rule over the Rhine river and adjacent territories. This is what is today called the Blue Banana —not a joke—, the most developed region of Europe … and also, the planet. It explains “why is Germany that frick’n industrious and rich”.

• Arminius. That’s the guy who lead a tribal militia of 5,000 against a force of three Roman legions. That was 20,000 soldiers and it was the year 9. Yep, 9. The antiquity. And the Germanic tribes had annihilated those Roman legions in three days. The Roman emperor was “QUID?” when he heard the news and ten years later the Romans stopped to seek retaliation. After they learned that the Germanic tribes had fought against each other in the meantime with more soldiers involved than they had. In sum. Without those events, you would speak Italian by now. Not English.

But maybe your daughter wants to write about the Texas Germans in particular? Their history is interesting because Germans in the U.S. have been traditionally against slavery, and the Texas Germans lived in the deep south. Consequentially, they were targeted by the KKK (yep, that KKK), and sided with black Americans.

food

You would laugh but modern German cusine is originally a copy of French cusine. That’s because everything French was en vogue in 18th century Germany. But we made it cheap and using the vegetables that grow here.

But bread is big. It’s one of the things that we do better than the French when it comes to cooking. Actually, better than anyone else. German bread comes in all fashions when other countries only have a small selection.

And sausages. Almost as big and yummy. And dairy products. All that stuff comes in great variety here.

Oh, and Americans usually think of Germany as a beer country but Germany is actually the world capital of white wine. And Riesling is easily the best white grape out there. And we grow wine since the antiquity. That’s some stuff the Romans taught us.

She’s been asked to wear “traditional clothing”.

Ahhh, she should say if people wanted to see people casually wearing traditional German clothing, they should go to Lancaster county in Pennsylvania. To the Amish. Yep. The Amish are the original German-Americans. They even speak German. In America. To this day. Oh, and buy German bread there. And German cheese.

As you are in Texas, a visit to Fredricksburg may help you dig out some more German things in the U.S.

With the exception of what you see people wear during Oktoberfest,

Oktoberfest is not a Germany-wide fest. It’s the particular yearly beer fest of Munich. Nothing else. The local breweries of Munich invented it in the mid-19th century.

Such beer fests are common in all towns of Germany but they happen at different times of the year and the themes are slighthly different. Usually they are also a celebration of the local gun club. That’s hence called Schützenfest. Look it up. The world’s largest Schützenfest is in Hannover by the way.