Eisenhower's great-3 grandfather Hans Nicholas migrated from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland of Germany.
For anyone familiar with the major highway that runs from Mannheim through Kaiserslautern to Saarbrucken, you stay on it into France, then turn north back into Saarbrucken to find Karlsbrunn.
The Eisenhowers, like many other Pennsylvania Dutch moved to Switzerland then to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania (1741) for reasons that are always described as "religious persecution."
And that's not surprising, since as Anabaptist Mennonites they were rejected by both Catholics and what are now called "mainline" Protestants.
Eisenhowers became River Brethren -- today officially the Brethren in Christ (BIC) church founded around 1778 near Lancaster, PA -- and were part of a large migration (train loads of families) organized in the 1880s to Kansas.
At some point the Eisenhowers left the pacifist Mennonite BIC church, and Dwight was not rebaptised until 1953, in the Presbyterian Church.
Unlike Mennonites, Presbyterians are highly noted for their military contributions to the American Revolutionary War.
Eisenhower served under MacArthur in the Philippines (studying "dramatics" he said, MacArthur said Eisenhower was the best clerk he ever had), then under Patton and finally under General George Marshall who recommended him to FDR.
Doubtless what all those men recognized were Eisenhower's quick intelligence and adept diplomatic skills.
I'm a huge Eisenhower fan (with apologies to Taft folks), at least in part because his family background is quite analogous to mine. ;-)
I may share that trait with you. My father’s sister married into a Mormon family and the payoff for me was that I got some good genealogy info on the Simpson clan. The earliest member of my father’s line emigrated from Germany and died in Pennsylvania in 1790. (I’m relying on memory here so don’t hold me to it. I will check the docs later and report any serious errors.) From PA Clan Simpson moved gradually west until the time of great-grandpa Simpson when they lived in Missouri. (Or Missoura, as it was invariably pronounced by the Oregon Simpsons.) Great-grandpa Simpson moved his family to Eastern Oregon sometime around 1900. The family of Grandpa Simpson’s future bride was already well-established there, having arrived on their own multi-generational journey from Germany mid-19th century. As far as I know the Simpsons, by the time they arrived in Oregon, had shed any strong religious tendencies. I have never encountered any hint of Mennonitism, or whatever you call it, in my lineage.
Anyway, there is a little background for consideration if you happen to read any of my father’s letters home from the army I post now and then.