Like 'Cheers' for Germans: This Scottsdale restaurant helps preserve language, culture
When diners arrive at a unique German restaurant in Scottsdale called Treffpunkt, they are usually greeted by Carolin Gey, who escorts them to tables with a grace and efficiency that hints at her background.
Gey is no ordinary host, and Treffpunkt is no ordinary restaurant.
Gey is the honorary consul of Germany for Arizona, the German government's top diplomat in the state. She is also the driving force behind Treffpunkt, a nonprofit organization and restaurant that does much more than serve schnitzel and spaetzle in a border state better known for tacos and enchiladas.
Treffpunkt, German for "meeting place," is a throwback to the mostly vanished German American clubs of the past where German Americans once gathered to socialize, eat, drink and maintain their language in a country where immigrants are expected to assimilate.
The Treffpunkt is also a reminder that earlier waves of German immigrants tried hard to hold onto their language and heritage.
In doing so, German Americans at times faced anti-immigrant sentiments and accusations of not wanting to fit in, not unlike newer waves of immigrants but also in different ways.
Located in an industrial park near the Scottsdale Airport, the restaurant's goal is to help German speakers living in Arizona preserve their language and heritage. This is especially important at a time when the German immigrant population is small and they tend to lose their language and culture quickly, said Gey, who was born in Germany.
In addition to German food, Treffpunkt also hosts beer gardens, German language classes and lectures on German and European history and culture.
Treffpunkt began offering language classes to members in October 2020, and the restaurant opened to the public in October 2022.
Since then, Treffpunkt has become a popular meeting spot for Arizona's growing population of German expats and German-speaking immigrants.
The population in Arizona includes employees of German-owned companies transferred to Arizona and Germans who married American military personnel stationed in Germany, Gey said. The German military also trains some of its pilots at the Goodyear Airport, where pilots of the German airline Lufthansa also train, Gey said.
The restaurant also attracts visitors from other countries where German is spoken, including Austria and Switzerland, Gey said.
German Americans, the nation's large ethnic group, also come to Treffpunkt to reconnect with their roots. But the restaurant invites anyone interested in learning about the county and its culture and, of course, eating German food, Gey said. In addition, the restaurant plays an unofficial role in building growing business and economic ties between Arizona and Germany, collaborating with the German American Chamber of Commerce of Arizona, Gey said.
"We wanted to create something where you can (experience) the German-speaking heritage," said Gey.
In the 1980s, Gey lived with an American family for a year and attended high school in Pennsylvania as an exchange student. The only German she spoke was sending tape recordings by mail to her family in Germany because calling long distance was so expensive. By the time she returned home, she had forgotten how to speak German and spoke with an American accent.
Losing your language "goes very, very fast," Gey said. "On my first German test, I got zero points (out of 100)."
At Treffpunkt, she hopes other German speakers won't experience the same fate.
Communal conversations and familiar fare
On a recent Thursday, Treffpunkt was packed with diners who had come for a weekly stammtisch. A stammtisch is a tradition in many restaurants and pubs in Germany where regulars sit together at communal tables to eat, drink and chit-chat in a large group.
The people seated at the stammtisch tables that evening came from a range of backgrounds but were united by an interest in German language, food and culture. Over plates of schnitzel and glasses of hefeweizen and Riesling, they discussed everything from places they had visited in Germany to the rise of artificial intelligence. The conversation was mostly in English but often switched to German.
One of the diners that night was Laus Knappik, who grew up in Germany. Knappik said he retired in Phoenix in 2021 after decades working as an executive for the German-affiliated company DHL Globalmail.
Knappik said he comes to Treffpunkt as often as three times a week to eat good German food and meet other German speakers. In April, Knappik celebrated his 77th birthday there.
"It has a kind of family atmosphere," Knappik said. He also often brings non-German-speaking friends to Treffpunkt.
He was seated at a table with two friends from the same apartment complex, Marc Soronson, 68, and his wife Jill Soronson, 67.
Marc Soronson, a semi-retired private transportation contractor, said he and his wife like coming to the restaurant even though they don't speak German and are not of German descent.
The food is "delicious," Soronson said. But Treffpunkt is not like other restaurants. "It's kind of like a social club," Soronson said. "It's a fun different place."
Scottsdale resident Jessica Crozier, 46, is a travel adviser who plans trips to Europe but specializes in Germany. At first, she started coming to Treffpunkt because she thought it would be a good way to network and find new clients for her travel business.
But it's the friendships she's created that keep her coming back two or three times a month.
"The people are so welcoming," Crozier said.
She was seated at a round table next to diners she sees every week and others she had just met, among them Clif Conley, a 42-year-old tech industry worker who lives in Gilbert.
It was Conley's first visit. Raised by a German stepmother, Conley said he also spent time living in Germany, where he found Germans to be "more open culturally." So when a friend invited him to visit Treffpunkt, Conley said he jumped at the chance.
"I love German culture," Conley said. "I also love multicultural experiences."
German migration to the United States
German immigration to the U.S. goes back to the colonial 1600s and 1700s.
About 5,000 of the 30,000 German Hessian soldiers who fought for the British during the American Revolution remained in the U.S., said Barbara Citera, a German history professor at the University of Arizona.
The biggest waves of German immigration to the U.S., however, took place in the 1800s, said Volker Benkert, a history professor at Arizona State University.
Some German-speaking immigrants were fleeing political upheaval or religious persecution, and others sought better opportunities in America, Benkert said.
"German immigration was never monolithic," Benkert said.
German immigrants came from many regions of Germany and German-speaking countries and came from different cultural and religious backgrounds, including German Catholics, German Lutherans and German Jews.
One big wave of German immigrants came to the U.S. during the failed democratic revolution of 1848 in Germany and other German-speaking countries, Benkert said.
"That is when a whole bunch of, kind of very liberal-leaning Germans are, literally, driven out of German-speaking lands," Benkert said.
In the 1850s, nearly 1 million Germans immigrated to the U.S. In 1854 alone, 215,000 Germans came, according to the Library of Congress.
Another 1.5 million immigrants left Germany in the 1880s and migrated to the U.S., including 250,000 in 1882.
"These are folks who are literally just leaving the country for economic opportunity," Benkert said.
Immigration to the U.S. was made easier by the rise of transatlantic steamships, Benkert said. The creation of German American charitable organizations in the U.S. that helped immigrants find jobs also served as a magnet for German immigration to the U.S., Benkert said.
It became easier to get to America "because the infrastructure is there, you know that on the other side there is something waiting for you. There are other countrymen who will help you even if it's just for a few months in the beginning," he said.
By World War I, German immigration to the U.S. had slowed to a trickle, but another wave came after World War II that included the spouses of American GIs. Some German soldiers held as prisoners of war in camps in the U.S., including one camp in Papago Park, also found ways to remain in the U.S. after the war, Benkert said.
"They were treated pretty well, and quite a number of them after '45 decided not to return to Germany, a destroyed country with very little economic prospects," Benkert said.
Tens of thousands of Jewish refugees also came to the U.S. during the Holocaust. A spike in German immigration to the U.S. also followed World War II, when about 200,000 Germans came to the U.S. before the wall between democratic West Germany and Communist East Germany was built, Citera said.
For the most part, German immigrants did not face the same kind of racism that other immigrant groups did, including Chinese immigrants, Benkert said.
"Germans were kind of racially acceptable to mainstream Americans," Benkert said.
Heritage from the old country preserved in the new
A common perception exists that earlier waves of immigrants, including German immigrants, made a conscious effort to quickly learn English and adopt American customs and culture.
But that is not necessarily true. A century ago, hundreds of social clubs that preserved and promoted German language and culture dotted U.S. cities with large concentrations of German Americans, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.
In some ways, it was easier for German Americans to hold onto their language and culture, Benkert said. German Americans as white northern Europeans were accepted by mainstream American society, in contrast to other immigrant groups, who by just virtue of race and ethnicity were perceived as a threat, Benkert said.
By the end of the 1800s, German Americans had formed hundreds of clubs in U.S. cities. Citera said more than 800 German-language newspapers and journals were published in the U.S.
"There was actually a saying in the late 1800s, which is like the heyday of German immigration, that if three Germans meet, they form a club," Citera said.
German Americans brought the club system over to the U.S. from the Old World, Citera said, where Germans congregated at different clubs centered on professions, religion, sports teams and pastimes.
"Pretty much for any purpose you found a club. If it was for playing chess, you found a club. There was a smoking club in New York that was called the Blue Cloud," Citera said.
Two catalysts to shed their names, traditions
During World War I, however, German Americans began to shed their language and culture amid rising anti-German sentiments, Citera said.
"German Americans were looked upon with suspicion," Citera said. Many schools stopped offering German classes, even some universities, she said.
The German American club system in the U.S. survived World War I and experienced a revival after the war, Citera said.
Some German Americans supported the rise of Nazism in Germany and even formed an organization, the German American Bund, to promote a favorable view of the Nazi Party and create a Nazi government in the U.S. In February 1939, the 20,000 American Nazis attended a pro-Nazi Party rally organized by the German American Bund at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
But after Hitler declared war on the U.S. in 1941 following Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor, the pro-Nazi movement in America lost steam. It was replaced by a movement by German Americans to blend in to avoid the risk of being associated with Nazi Germany, Benkert said.
"The two world wars, particularly World War I, is the deciding moment when lots of German Americans shed that kind of German heritage … The German community feels they have to make a choice between their home country and their new country. And overwhelmingly, German Americans choose America."
Some German Americans, Benkert said, starting during World War I and continuing during World War II, changed their German last names to sound more American by anglicizing the spelling: Mueller to Muller, Schmidt to Smith and Koch to Cook, for example.
How many German-born people live in Arizona today?
German Americans are now the largest ancestry group in the U.S. More than 41 million Americans claim German ancestry, or about 1 in 9 Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. German Americans introduced the first kindergartens in America and the Christmas tree tradition, among many contributions, Benkert said.
However, German immigration to the U.S. in recent decades has slowed to a trickle. The number of German immigrants in the U.S. is now relatively small compared to other groups. Of the 46.2 million immigrants in the U.S., about 537,000 were born in Germany, or about 1% of the total, according to 2002 Census data.
Only about 13,000 people born in Germany live in Arizona, according to Census data. That is about 1% of the nearly 1 million foreign-born people in Arizona. Benkert says many of the Germans living in Arizona are not immigrants but expats like himself, who came to the U.S. not out of necessity but choice.
In that way, Treffpunkt is a modern take on the German American clubs of the past, said Benkert, who volunteers at the nonprofit. While the original clubs catered to German Americans trying to preserve language and culture in their adopted country, the Treffpunkt caters more towards German expats who "see themselves as a bridge between Germany and German-speaking lands and the U.S."
Citera, the University of Arizona professor, also noted that German American clubs were mostly closed to outsiders, But during her visit, she was struck by the Treffpunkt's "welcoming flair."
In the 1800s and early 1900s, "the complaint was that Germans had this particularism that they cling together and they are not as open and that is a big big difference with the Treffpunkt," she said. "It's not so much on preserving the German language ... it's really about meeting people casually so they can explore their own interests in German and English."
'A little bit like 'Cheers' for Germans'
Christian Fleury, who lives in Scottsdale but is originally from Germany, was hesitant to visit Treffpunkt.
The 51-year-old real estate agent and photographer met Gey when he went to the German consulate to renew his passport. She invited him to Treffpunkt and told him it would be a good place to connect with other Germans. But Fleury said he felt little need to meet other people from Germany.
Fleury said, "These days, it's so easy staying connected with your home country. You can listen to German radio, watch German TV, drink German beer" and FaceTime over the internet with friends and family in Germany.
His boss at the real estate agency where he works suggested it might be a good networking opportunity.
After months of dawdling, Fleury finally visited. He felt an immediate connection chatting with fellow Germans he met about German soccer clubs and Neue Deutsche Welle, a genre of German rock music in the 1980s.
"It's a little bit like 'Cheers' for Germans," Fleury said, referencing the popular TV show where "everyone knows your name."
Now, Fleury visits Treffpunkt at least once a week.
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Arizona Republic reporter Olakunle Falayi contributed to this article.
Daniel Gonzalez covers race, equity and opportunity. Reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8312.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Treffpunkt in Scottsdale: This restaurant is like 'Cheers' for Germans.
