Ethnic Germans

This article is about the German diaspora. See Germans for the German ethnicity in general.

Ethnic Germans (German: Deutschstämmige, historically also Volksdeutsche), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, are those who are considered, by themselves or others, to be of German origin ethnically, not necessarily born or living within the present-day Federal Republic of Germany, holding its citizenship or speaking the German language. Ethnic Germans have a rich history and folklore.

In English usage, but less often in German, the term may be used for assimilated descendants of German emigrants. The traditional American English language practice has been to refer to the ethnic Germans of a given country by combining the country or region name (or its adjective) with "Germans"; for example, "Brazilian Germans" was at least traditionally used (see below) to refer to ethnic Germans living in Brazil. In the past, this practice broke down when referring to countries that no longer existed ("Kingdom of Hungary" Germans) or regions that transcended national boundaries (thus "Black Sea Germans"), "Alsatian Germans" and "Baltic Germans".

However, the modern trend is to emphasize the status as citizens of the new country and to invert the order of the compound expression. According to this system, one uses the word "German" as an adjective, not a noun. For example, German Americans are called German Americans but never "U.S. Germans" or "American Germans". For several decades, many ethnic German groups preferred to call themselves in a way that emphasized that they were assimilated members of the society of their new country.

German ethnicity is historically equivalent to the German language Sprachraum. Thus, Swiss Germans still held strong ties with and sympathies towards Germany during World War I, although separating from the Holy Empire between the 13th and 17th century. The first attempts to create a consciousness of the "Austrian nation" took place during the Napoleonic Wars (at which time "Austrian" identity included non-German-speaking subjects of the Austrian Empire) and in the 1930s during Dollfuss' Austro-Fascist period, but without much success. Many German-speaking Austrians considered themselves ethnic Germans until after World War I (see German Austria). Since the end of World War II, Austrians have increasingly come to see themselves as a nation distinct from the German nation.[1] . In 1987 only 6 percent of the Austrians still identified themselves as "Germans".[2] Today, the logic of the existence of an independent Austrian nation is no longer questioned.

Contents

Terminology

Main article: Volksdeutsche
Further information: Reichsdeutsche and Bundesdeutsche

Volksdeutsche "ethnic Germans" is a historical term which arose in the early 20th century to describe ethnic Germans living outside of the German Empire. This is in contrast to Imperial Germans (Reichsdeutsche), German citizens living within Germany.

This is the loosest meaning of the term, which was used mainly during the Weimar Republic. In a stricter sense, Volksdeutsch came to mean ethnic Germans living abroad but without German citizenship, i.e., the juxtaposition with Reichsdeutsch was sharpened to denote difference in citizenship as well as residence.

Auslandsdeutsche (adj. auslandsdeutsch) is a concept that connotes German citizens living abroad, or alternatively ethnic Germans entering Germany from abroad. Today, this means citizen of Germany living more or less permanently in another country (including long-term academic exchange lecturers and the like), who are allowed to vote in the Republic's elections, but who usually do not pay taxes to Germany. In a looser but still valid sense, and in general discourse, the word is frequently used in lieu of the ideologically tainted term Volksdeutsche, denoting persons living abroad without German citizenship but defining themselves as Germans (culturally or ethnically speaking).

Distribution

Ethnic Germans are an important minority group in many countries. (See Germans, German language, and German as a minority language for more extensive numbers and a better sense of where Germans maintain German culture and have official recognition.) The following sections briefly detail the historical and present distribution of ethnic Germans by region, but generally exclude modern expatriates, who have a presence in the United States, Scandinavia and major urban areas worldwide. See Groups at bottom for a list of all ethnic German groups, or continue for a summary by region.

Ancestry according to the U.S. 2000 census: Counties with plurality of German ancestry in light blue

North America

South and Central America

They are a considerable part of the population in:

Notable examples of German-Brazilians are former president Ernesto Geisel, politician Jorge Bornhausen, actress Vera Fischer, Cacilda Becker, top models as Gisele Bündchen, Ana Hickmann, Letícia Birkheuer and Rodrigo Hilbert, musicians like Andreas Kisser and Astrud Gilberto, architect Oscar Niemeyer, landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, physicist and astronomer Marcelo Gleiser, physician Adolfo Lutz, basketball player Oscar Schmidt, tennis player Gustavo Kuerten, swimmer Fernando Scherer, tv host Xuxa Meneghel, the Catholic prelates Cláudio Cardinal Hummes and Paulo Evaristo Cardinal Arns and the renowned sailor Robert Scheidt among many others.
An example of German Argentines is president Néstor Kirchner. Other notable examples of Argentine ethnic Germans are top model Nicole Neumann, basketball player Wálter Herrmann, football player Gabriel Heinze among many others.

Notable communities of ethnic Germans exist in:

Western Europe and the Alpine nations

Main article: German-speaking Europe

Italy

Map of Austria-Hungary in 1911, showing areas inhabited by ethnic Germans in pink

In Italy there are two main groups, the main one being at least 300,000[14] ethnic Germans in Bolzano-Bozen, formerly part of the County of Tyrol (before the 1919 dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Their dialect is Austro-Bavarian German.

There also exist smaller, unique populations of Germans who arrived so long ago that their dialect retains many archaic features heard nowhere else:

Smaller German-speaking communities exist also in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region: the Carinthians in the Canale Valley (municipalities of Tarvisio, Malborghetto Valbruna and Pontebba) and the Zahren and Timau Germans in Carnia.

Alpine Nations

Further information: Austrians and Swiss (people)

Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein all have a German-speaking majority, though their populations do not necessarily identify themslves as "German" per se. In Austria, this identification has increasingly become sensitive. In addition, an estimated 112,000 German nationals (i.e., citizens of Germany) live in Switzerland, another 110,000 in Austria.

France

Bilingual street sign in Mulhouse

In France, Alsace and the Moselle departement were originally German-speaking, but because of territorial transfers resulting from various wars, and given the French stance on language and ethnicity within the Republic, assimilation has decimated the Alsatian dialect. The German-speaking population is estimated at 1,500,000, plus another 40,000 for ethnic Luxembourgers.

German-speaking areas of Belgium.

Benelux

Belgium

In Belgium, there is also a German minority, which forms the majority in its region of 71,000 inhabitants (though Ethnologue puts the national total at 150,000, not including Limburgisch and Luxembourgish).

Luxembourg

Though their language (Luxembourgish) is very closely related to the German language, Luxembourgers do not consider themselves ethnic Germans. In a 1941 referendum held in Luxembourg by the German occupants, more than 90% proclaimed themselves Luxembourgish by nationality, mother tongue and ethnicity.[15]

The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, there are 380,000 Germans[16] and a similar number of Dutch people are estimated to live in Germany.[17]

Denmark

In Denmark, the part of Schleswig that is now South Jutland County (or Northern Schleswig) has about 12,000–20,000 Germans. These Germans mostly speak Standard German and South Jutlandic. A few speak the Schleswigsch variety of Low Saxon.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, there exists a German-Briton/British Germans ethnic group of around 300,000, mainly descended from nineteenth century immigrants, World War II prisoners of war & other refugees. The vast majority have settled in the London & South East part of the United Kingdom, in particular, Richmond (South West London). Famously, the British Royal Family are partially descended from German Monarchs.

Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union

See also: German eastward expansion, History of German settlement in Eastern Europe, Organised persecution of ethnic Germans, and German exodus from Eastern Europe
German language area in 1910–35.
1. Depicted political state borders as in 1914;
2. Dutch language considered as Low German by English sources.

From medieval Ostsiedlung until the Expulsion of Germans after World War II, many areas in Central and Eastern Europe had a German population (during the Nazi era termed Volksdeutsche, now Auslandsdeutsche). Due to the ongoing German exodus from Eastern Europe, numbers of ethnic Germans severely decreased in the countries that are now Germany and Austria's neighbors to the east—Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia. In addition, there are or have been significant populations in such areas as Romania, Yugoslavia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia.

As recently as 1990, there were 1 million standard German speakers and 100,000 Plautdietsch speakers in Kazakhstan alone, and 38,000, 40,000 and 101,057 standard German speakers in Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, respectively.

There were reportedly 500,000 ethnic Germans in Poland in 1998.[18] Recent official figures show 147,000 (as of 2002)[3]. But, because the census registers only declared nationalities, the actual figure is probably higher. Of the 745,421 Germans in Romania in 1930,[19] only about 60,000 remained.[20] In Hungary the situation is quite similar, with only about 220,000.[21] There are up to 1 million Germans in the former Soviet Union, mostly in a band from southwestern Russia and the Volga valley, through Omsk and Altai Krai (597,212 Germans in Russia, 2002 Russian census) to Kazakhstan (353,441 Germans in Kazakhstan, 1999 Kazakhstan census). Germany admitted approximately 1.63 million ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 1999.[22]

These Auslandsdeutsche, as they are now generally known, have been streaming out of the former Eastern Bloc since the early 1990s. For example, many ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union have taken advantage of the German Law of return, a policy which grants citizenship to all those who can prove to be a refugee or expellee of German ethnic origin or the spouse or descendant of such a person. This exodus has occurred despite the fact that many of the ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union speak little or no German.

Baltic states

Main article: Baltic Germans
Further information: Nazi-Soviet population transfers

Bulgaria

Main article: Germans in Bulgaria

Czech Republic and Slovakia

Main articles: Germans in the Czech Republic and Germans from Slovakia

Before World War II, some 30% of of the population in the Czech lands was ethnic German.[23] There are about 40,000 Germans in the Czech Republic (number of Czechs who have at least partly German ancestry probably runs into hundreds of thousands).[24] Their number has been consistently decreasing since World War II. According to the 2001 census there remain 13 municipalities and settlements in the Czech Republic with more than 10% Germans.

The situation in Slovakia was different from that in the Czech lands, in that the number of Germans was considerably lower and that the Germans from Slovakia were almost completely evacuated to German states as the Soviet army was moving west through Slovakia, and only the fraction of them that returned to Slovakia after the end of the war was deported together with the Germans from the Czech lands.

Many representatives of expelees organizations support the erection of bilingual signs in all formerly German speaking territory as a visible sign of the bilingual linguistic and cultural heritage of the region. While the erection of bilingual signs is technically permitted if a minority constitutes 10% of the population, the minority is also forced to sign a petition in favour of the signs in which 40% of the adult minority population must participate.

Further information: Sudeten Germans, Carpathian Germans, and Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia

Hungary

Main article: Germans of Hungary

Prior to World War II, approximately 1.5 million Danube Swabians lived in Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia.[25] Today the German minority in Hungary have minority rights, organisations, schools and local councils but spontaneous assimilation is well under way. Many of the deportees visited their old homes after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990.

Further information: Danube Swabians

Poland

Main article: German minority in Poland

The remaining German minority in Poland (152,897 people, who were registered in the 2002 census, some say much higher) enjoys minority rights according to Polish minority law. There are German speakers throughout Poland, and most of the Germans live in the Opole Voivodship in Silesia. Bilingual signs are posted in some towns of the region. In addition, there are bilingual schools and German can be used instead of Polish in dealings with officials in several towns. According to Henryk Kroll, the leader of the minority, Germans in Poland are not loyal citizens and they are only concerned with Opole region.[26]

Further information: Bilingual communes in Poland, Former eastern territories of Germany, and Flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland during and after World War II

Romania

Main article: Germans of Romania
Further information: Transylvanian Saxons, Banat Swabians, Transylvanian Landler, and Expulsion of Germans from Romania after World War II

Former Soviet Union

Main article: History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union
Further information: Black Sea Germans, Bessarabia Germans, Bukovina Germans, Crimea Germans, Germans of Kazakhstan, Caucasus Germans, Russian Mennonite, and Volga Germans

Former Yugoslavia

Main article: Germans of Yugoslavia
Examples of German language in Namibia's everday life.

Africa, Oceania, and East Asia

Unlike other major European powers of the 20th century, Germany was not very involved in colonizing Africa (though mainly because it came too late and from a difficult geopolitical location), and lost German East Africa and German South-West Africa after World War I. Similarly to those in Latin America, the Germans in Africa tended to isolate themselves and be more self-sufficient than other Europeans. In Namibia there are 30,000 ethnic Germans, 6% of the population, though it is estimated that only a third of those retain the language. Most German-speakers live in the capital, Windhoek, and in smaller towns such as Swakopmund and Lüderitz, where German architecture is highly visible. In South Africa, a number of Afrikaners and Boers are of partial German ancestry, being the descendants of German immigrants who intermarried with Dutch settlers and adopted Afrikaans as their mother tongue.

Like North America, Australia has received a significant number of ethnic German immigrants from Germany and elsewhere. Numbers vary depending on who is counted, but moderate criteria give an estimate of 750,000 (4% of the population). The first wave of German immigration to Australia began in 1838, with the arrival of Prussian Lutheran settlers in South Australia (see German settlement in Australia). After the Second World War, Australia received a large influx of displaced ethnic Germans. In the 1950s and 1960s, German immigration continued as part of a large post-war wave of European immigration to Australia.

New Zealand has received modest, but steady, ethnic German immigration from the mid-19th century. Today the number of New Zealanders with German ancestry is estimated to be as high as 200,000 (5% of the population). Many German New Zealanders anglicized their names during the 20th century due to the negative perception of Germans fostered by World War I and World War II.

During the Meiji era (1868–1912), many Germans came to work in Japan as advisors to the new government. Despite Japan's isolationism and geographic distance, there have been a few Germans in Japan, since Germany's and Japan's fairly parallel modernization made Germans ideal O-yatoi gaikokujin.

In China, the German trading colony of Jiaozhou Bay in what is now Qingdao existed until 1914, and did not leave much more than breweries, including Tsingtao Brewery.

Communist East Germany had relations with Uganda and Vietnam, but in these cases population movement went mostly to, not from, Germany. After the German reunification, a large percentage of "guest workers" from Communist nations sent to East Germany returned to their home countries.

See also: German colonial empire and List of former German colonies

Groupings

Note that many of these groups have since migrated elsewhere. This list simply gives the region with which they are associated, and does not include the Germans from countries with German as an official national language, which are:

In general, it also omits some collective terms in common use defined by political border changes where this is antithetical to the current structure. Such terms include:

Roughly grouped:

In the Americas, one can divide the groups by current nation of residence:

…or by ethnic or religious criteria:

In Africa, Oceania, and East Asia

Notes

Most numbers are from the www.ethnologue.com (see See also), apart from a few from German language and Germans, as well as the following in-line citations:

  1. ↑ Austria. Library of Congress Country Studies, 2004.. Accessed 1 Oct 2006.
  2. ↑ [1].
  3. ↑ Who's Counting? The l990 Census of German-Americans. On the site of The Tricentennial Foundation German American Community Service. Accessed 12 Feb 2006.
  4. ↑ Contents of ANCESTRY Table on the site of the United States Census Bureau. Accessed 12 Feb 2006.
  5. ↑ "Brasil alemão" comemora 180 anos | Brasil | Deutsche Welle | 25.07.2004
  6. ↑ Asociación Argentina de Descendientes de Alemanes del Volga
  7. ↑ Fiesta de La Cerveza - Oktoberfest Argentina - Villa General Belgrano
  8. ↑ Peruano-alemán
  9. ↑ POZUZO. Historia - caractersiticas generales - Antecedentes Caminos y vias :: antecedentes historicos clima flora y fauna posuso pozuso posuzo
  10. ↑ [2]
  11. ↑ "The Mennonite Old Colony Vision: Under siege in Mexico and the Canadian Connection" (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-05-30.
  12. ↑ Bolivian Reforms Raise Anxiety on Mennonite Frontier, New York Times
  13. ↑ Belize the Cultural Diversity of Belizean Society
  14. ↑ http://www.provincia.bz.it/downloads/Siz_2006-eng.pdf
  15. ↑ cf. the article on the Luxemburgish language on the German Wikipedia
  16. ↑ See Demographics of the Netherlands
  17. ↑ See Demographics of Germany.
  18. ↑ Ethnologue report for Poland
  19. ↑ German Population of Romania, 1930-1948
  20. ↑ German minority
  21. ↑ German in Hungary
  22. ↑ German and Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union to Germany
  23. ↑ Liberation - Post War Changes
  24. ↑ Ethnic German Minorities in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia
  25. ↑ "History of German Settlements in Southern Hungary" by Sue Clarkson
  26. ↑ (Polish) "Nas naprawdę nie obchodzi Rzeczpospolita, nas obchodzi Opolszczyzna." said Henryk Kroll in an interview for Gazeta Opolska weekly

See also

Three similar terms:

Other articles detailing the distribution of German language or people:

External links

Ethnologue entries:

German diaspora
Europe
Central and
Eastern
Bulgaria · Caucasus · Czech Republic (Sudetenland) · Hungary · Moldova · Poland · Russia (Volga · Russian Mennonite) · Slovakia · Ukraine (Black Sea · Bukhovina · Crimea)
Romania
Transylvanian Saxons / Landler · Danube / Banat / Satu Mare Swabians · Dobruja · Zisper · Regat
Balkans and
Southeastern
Croatia · Serbia · Yugoslavia · Turkey (Bosporus)
Elsewhere
Baltic states · Belgium · Denmark · United Kingdom
Americas
Argentina · Bolivia · Brazil · Canada · Chile · Colombia · Cuba · Dominican Republic · Jamaica · Mexico · Paraguay · Peru · United States (Pennsylvania Dutch · Puerto Rico · Texas · Palatines · Hutterites) · Venezuela
other
Africa: Namibia; Asia: Kazakhstan · Korea; Oceania: Australia