Early Swiss-German settlers founded the German Coast area in 1718. It is in St. Charles and St. John parish upriver from the city.  There numbers were small and they mixed with other immigrants so their identity has been lost over time.

Larger numbers arrived in the mid-ninteenth century before and after the Civil War as they fled miserable conditions in Germany after the Napoleonic Wars. Many were professionals and settled productively in New Orleans. In 1853, 53,000 Germans arrived in New Orleans.  Many Germans passed through New Orleans on their way to the west but by 1860 fully 10% of New Orleans population, nearly 20,000 people were German.

This period of immigration saw many Jews come to New Orleans.