My dad came over here in the early '20s. He was a cadet in the German navy in WWI and said that he hated all the "vons" at the academy as they were penniless but acted like they were millionaires with their class attitude.
The sidebar here is second or third hand as he never said anything to us about it. The superintendent across the street (son was a buddy of mine) fought with the Germans on the Russian front and he and my dad would talk about "The Old Country".
His son said he heard my old man say that he got into the academy because his father was a game-keeper on the Kaiser's estate and pulled some strings. Because of that my dad stayed loyal to the Kaiser when the fleet mutinied and gained everlasting hatred from his Communist shipmates. Said that was why he bailed to the U.S., as during the turmoil after the war, "they were after me."
He was the only one to survive WWII. Grandpa and grandpa were killed in the air raids. I have two middle names, after my dad's two brothers, one in the army, the other the navy, who disappeared in the war.
It was going to be either the Communists or the Nazis taking over Germany in the 1930s.