The author found in the 1880 Wisconsin census that residents who were German-born or whose parents were both German-born made up 31 per cent of the state’s population (‘German-born’ includes the mid-19th century German states of Europe as well as German-speaking Austria and Switzerland). She also provides data about the numbers of immigrants during Wisconsin’s first decades of settlement. One section of this paper is devoted to several movements in Germany and the U.S. to create a German state in the U.S. Another large part of the paper deals with the reasons that German immigrants chose Wisconsin as their destination.