The US is the new 1930s Germany, and we're here for a long time. But congratulations on your new home.

Congratulations. Was it difficult to get residency ?.

If you are a high value person it is easy to get a work permit. Then you can ask for permanent residency after 3 years. And they like B1 German level. (End of grade school, about) Five is the normal time. If you aren't a high value employee or retired it gets difficult. My wife came here with a job. I came on here coattails so to speak. But I do have an advanced degree. My daughter is having troubles. Not a college grad so she is at the bottom of the heap for jobs. So getting her in has been a struggle we aren't quite done with yet.
If you have parents or grandparents who had to escape Hitler you can apply for citizenship. That gives you the whole EU to choose from for living.

Ten years now.

I’ve been a legal resident just outside of Düsseldorf since the fall of 2011.

With me, the process went a bit quicker (about two months for the 3 year provisional, and then the unlimited). Work permit automatic, zero health insurance or pension.

Advantages I had: longterm marriage to a working German citizen, steady employment (in the USA), long term health insurance (American, so useless, but they didn’t know that), fluency in German (as well as six other EU languages), and I was able to convince them I would never ask for welfare.

Disadvantages: the only German health insurance I could get would have cost me $35,000 a year, and they try to double tax me in violation of the Double Taxation Treaty. It’s expensive here, although having your salary paid out in the USA, and being taxed in both countries is not typical. Between the USA and Germany, they ask me for about 73% income tax. Heil Honecker! You can fall through certain cracks in Germany. My wife's a social worker here, and she often worked with some of the several hundred thousand Germans who have no health insurance. The “everything-is-free-there” crowd is lying to you: it is not. The EU is no more interested in immigrant freeloaders than North America is.


My younger daughter has it a little easier, as she is a dual citizen and gets paid in Germany, so she only pays about 50% in income taxes. That’s really important, since she makes many multiples of what I do.

I was stationed there twice, once in the 80s and once in the 90s, and I loved it there. I was stationed at Hahn AB and Bitburg AB in the Eiffel region. I was mainly rural but the countryside was beautiful. I used to go Volksmarching to various towns in the region. I enjoyed the German people and tried learning and talking to them in their language which helped break the ice. I didn't get around to many other parts of Germany but did visit Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Trier, and during Fasching in Cologne. Love the food and pastries. For me, the best food was in the Gasthaus' about 20km outside the cities.