Why Was There No German Mafia in the USA History? (Short - Documentary)

Why Was There NEVER a German Mafia in the history of United States of America? Well, despite never being studied, the reasons are likely multifactorial.

• Chat GPT's entire answer to the question ---

"There are a number of factors that likely contributed to the absence of a German Mafia in the United States. One factor is the presence of strong law enforcement agencies that have been effective in suppressing organized crime. Additionally, the German immigrant community in the US was relatively well-integrated and successful, with many immigrants starting businesses and becoming productive members of society. This may have made it more difficult for a criminal underworld to develop. Finally, the US has a long history of anti-German sentiment, which may have made it less likely that German immigrants would band together for criminal purposes. "

• Query Chat GPT: "please name famous mafia groups in the United States"

"The American Mafia, also known as the Cosa Nostra
Irish American Mafia - also known as the Westside Mob or the Hudson Dusters
Jewish-American organized crime - also known as the Jewish Mafia, Jewish Mob, or Kosher Nostra
Purple Gang - a Jewish-American organized crime group based in Detroit, Michigan in the 1910s and 1920s.
The Chicago Outfit
The Westside Mob."

*Note how not a single one listed by A.I. is German.

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#history #germany #german #usahistory #usa #education #bostwiki

[robertshonk]

A German mafia? That would be some VERY organized crime.

[till]

We organize our crime so well, that it’s just legal.

[theliato]

Germans don’t form mafias. They form companies

[mirroarable]

No German has ever completed the necessary paperwork to organize a mafia.

[felipefromming]

As a German I can say we don't have the time and nerves for such a Firlefanz.

[coffeenorth]

A very important point was also that German immigrants entered the U.S. mostly as skilled workers with a vocational training as carpenters, brick layers, blacksmiths etc. which made them rather popular on the labor market. They didn't have to turn to a life of crime because even when they weren't academics they were set up for a successful life. The perspectives looked a little differently for the Irish for example when they came to America.

[blucheer]

My dad’s German side of the family, East Prussians, family moto was something like “thank God it’s Monday” back to work! Their work ethic was legendary lol

[Anonymous-sqeo]

A German mafia would require you to fill out hundreds of pages in paperwork, just to become an associate.

[MrAsianPie]

Imagine if there were still German village exclaves.

Driving through middle America, and then passing through a German village.

[hans]

I'd add two cultural reasons that run more deeply. You have to also consider that there really never was a German mafia in Germany, except for one kinda similar case in the 20s, and even today all larger organized crime groups in Germany are of foreign origins and most, except for some biker gangs, are exclusively staffed by foreigners.
1. Family structures in countries having huge mafias are very clan based, which isn't the case for Germany.
2. Us Germanic peoples tend to be extremely orderly, look at Scandinavia or the Netherlands for other examples.

[edddddddddddd]

German1: let’s make a mafia.
German2: that’s impossible. It’s illegal.

[viper]

As a german with some experience around the other side of the law i have to say that the german mentality around crime plays a big role as well. While the big mafias treat their criminal activities as a fulltime job the averge german criminal thinks of it more like a side gig or a hobby. And german criminals usually try to hide their activities from their families, are generally paranoid and only form very small groups if at all. Most operate alone and i think that it could play into why they diddnt make it big in organised crime.

[MrGeneralissimus]

First rule of German Mafia: There is no German Mafia

[thomasherreiner]

Thanks for an interesting question and video. As a German I think there are two reasons: 1) As you explained most Germans preferred to live as farmers in the countryside, just as they did back home. 2) There is/was an Italian Mafia in Italy. There is was an Irish Mafia in Ireland. But there never was a real German Mafia in Germany. So it could actually not be "exported".

[tindo]

The italians in Brazil never founded a Mafia, why? Because they were white, catholics and could easily learn Portuguese, so they were rapidly integrated into our society and actually performed better than the average. I think something similar happened with the Germans in the US, as they were white, protestants and could easily learn English, they rapidly integrated into American society.

[jamesswanson]

Hard to form a mafia when you basically avoid everyone 😂

[MorTuuza]

As a German myself I must say, this was indeed very informative and interesting! Thanks for researching and presenting the data.

[UltimaDoge]

Germans never choose the easy way. They worked hard and stayed out of trouble. There was a reason they’ve chosen the vastness of the Midwest instead overcrowded city’s. Land is cheap and big, almost no competition and low chances of any kind of trouble. Makes sense when you look at it that way.

[redrackham]

I have a hypothesis about this: organized crime tends to form among immigrant groups who come from a culture where they feel alienated from state authority. If you look at the Jewish mob, for example, it was formed entirely by Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia, where Jews were brutalized and oppressed by the government, and not at from the Jews who had come from Germany or Western Europe, where Jews certainly faced discrimination, but did not generally regard the state as the enemy. In fact, the American Jews who had come from Central and Western Europe actively opposed the Jewish mob(s), frequently hiring private detectives to combat the Jewish mob. And you see a similar pattern with the Italian mob: it was drawn overwhelmingly from southern Italian, especially Sicilian immigrants. Sicily, of course, because it has been so frequently invaded and occupied by one conqueror after another, also developed a strong cultural tradition where the state was the enemy. Immigrants from Northern and Central Italy, by contrast, wanted nothing to do with the Italian mob. The Irish immigrants, too, were coming from a country occupied by the British in which, of course, the British state was the enemy. And you see this over and over again: when the immigrants come from a place where the state is the enemy, they come from a society where there is a powerful custom of not cooperating with state authorities. And that is what organized crime depends on. They depend on people refusing to cooperate with the police and prosecutors, i.e., state authority, because of a culture in which doing so is seen as being an informer or a snitch. The German immigrants never had that: they were overwhelmingly economic migrants coming from a country in which the state was not the enemy. So they lacked the key ingredient for a mob to be able to take hold and thrive.

[theMisfit]

as a german: if there is no complicated bureaucratic process to join it, it does not exist for us.