I would like a list of major US companies with a european presence for
job search purposes.  Please tell me how the information was obtained
as well.

Hello.

Germany has the largest economy in Europe. All of the U.S. companies
with a major presence in Germany have extensive operations throughout
Europe. As such, a list of the U.S. companies with the largest
presence in Germany gives you a great list of companies for your job
search. Here are the top 20 American companies (along with a link to
each company's career web site):

(1) Opel/General Motors
http://www.gm.com/company/careers/

(2) Ford
http://www.mycareer.ford.com/main.asp

(3) Esso / ExxonMobil
http://www.prod.exxonmobil.com/careers/

(4) General Electric
http://www.gecareers.com/GECAREERS/jsp/index.jsp

(5) Philip Morris
http://www.pmicareers.com/pmi.asp

(6) IBM
http://www-1.ibm.com/employment/

(7) Hewlett-Packard
http://www.jobs.hp.com/?mtxs=corp&mtxb=3&mtxl=2

(8) Conoco
http://www.conocophillips.com/careers/careers.asp

(9) Procter & Gamble
http://www.pg.com/jobs/sectionmain.jhtml

(10) Motorola
http://www.motorolacareers.com/

(11) Wal-Mart
http://www.walmartstores.com/wmstore/wmstores/Maincareers.jsp?template=Careers.jsp&categoryOID=-8247&pagetype=careers

(12) Dow
http://www.dow.com/careers/index.htm

(13) McDonald's
http://www.mcdonalds.com/corporate/careers/index.html

(14) Honeywell
http://www.honeywell.com/careers/index.html

(15) Intel
http://www.intel.com/jobs/index.htm?iid=Homepage+IntelLinks_jobs&

(16) Coca-Cola
http://www2.coca-cola.com/careers/index.html

(17) Kraft Foods
http://www.kraft.com/careers/international.html

(18) John Deere
http://www.deere.com/en_US/careers/index.html?sidenavstate=001

(19) Tyco
http://www.tyco.com/careers/index.asp

(20) DuPont
http://www1.dupont.com/dupontglobal/corp/careers/index.html

Source: American Chamber of Commerce
http://www.amcham.de/data/public_relations/top50_english.htm
"The Top 50 Companies with U.S. Parentage," cached by Google
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:AT7nfkzJMYgC:www.amcham.de/data/public_relations/TOP%252050_2000.pdf+%22u.s.+companies%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet

search strategy: 
"us companies", international, opel, ibm, coca-cola

I hope this helps.