As much as Europeans might find the North American notion of identity and citizenship odd and ahistorical and anachronistic, the reverse is also true. The idea of "nationhood" tied to ethnicity isn't even that old on the continent. Just dates to the modern era. People in feudal Europe were not calling themselves Germans. They could barely think beyond their village or fiefdom or whatever.

I don't even have to go far back in the history of Germany and the defunct states that preceded it to find a patchwork of languages and cultures all of which would only be colloquially called "German" but many of which would be in fact mutually unintelligible from a linguistic POV and often quite apart culturally too.

I've also always found it more than a bit absurd that I as a second generation son of a German immigrant to Canada could -- because of blood descent -- claim a German passport and citizenship despite never having lived there.

Then again with the way North America is going, if I wasn't tied down here, I'd be tempted to do that and spend my retirement there, instead.