Donald Trump's father 'repeatedly tried to hide his family's German heritage'

The President's father, Fred Trump, said the family was from Sweden

US President Donald Trump (Reuters)

Donald Trump’s family has repeatedly attempted to hide their German heritage, it has been reported.

The President’s father, Fred Trump, passed himself off as Swedish, amid anti-German sentiment after World War II, according to Gwenda Blair’s book, The Trumps: Three Generations that Built an Empire.

The book claims that Donald’s grandfather immigrated to the US from the German city of Kallstadt in 1885.

It also suggests that that Fred denied speaking German and opted not to teach it to his children.

John Walter, a Trump family historian and one of Donald Trump’s cousins, said it was an attempt not to offend Jewish customers.

“He said, ‘You don’t sell apartments after the war if you’re German,’ “ Mr Walter told the Boston Globe. “So he’s Swedish, no problem.”

In his book, “The Art of the Deal,” Donald Trump reaffirmed the claim that his grandfather came to America “from Sweden as a child” but in a video message at the annual German-American Steuben Parade in New York City the President accepted he has a German heritage.

“We passed Trump Tower, 69 stories. I looked up and I said, ‘This is a long way from Kallstadt’, I’m a proud German-American,” Mr Trump added in the 1999 address.