German deceent is actually the largest ethnic group in US and had pretty thriving neighborhoods for a long time until, you know, those two wars (especially the second one)made being German uncool, to say the least. Stevepalooza, you're definitely right that they're forgotten. You can thank Hitler for that. Reading a book on the old Five Points, I discovered that a significant amount of Germans in the area during 1850s-70s were Jewish and that the delicatessen we think of as Jewish is more German influenced than Jewish (at least until they got to NYC).