History of German settlement in Eastern Europe
Encyclopedia
The presence of German-speaking populations in Central
and Eastern Europe
is rooted in centuries of history, with the settling in northeastern Europe of Germanic peoples
predating even the founding of the Roman Empire. The presence of the independent German states in the region (particularly Prussia
), and later the German Empire
but also in other multi-ethnic countries such as Austria-Hungary
, Poland
, Imperial Russia, etc. demonstrates the extent and duration of German-speaking settlements. In the German language
, the German populations in these parts of Europe are commonly referred to as Volksdeutsche
. The number of ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe dropped dramatically as the result of the German exodus from Eastern Europe
. However, there are still a substantial number of ethnic Germans 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 Estonia
, Latvia
, Romania
, Moldova
, Ukraine
, Russia
and Kazakhstan
.
, Charlemagne
had subdued a variety of Germanic peoples
in Central Europe
dwelling in an area roughly bordered by the Alps
in the South, the Vosges mountains
in the West, the North Sea
and Elbe
River in the North and the Saale
River in the East. These inhomogeneous Germanic peoples comprised several tribes and groups who either formed, stayed or migrated into this area during the migration period
. After the Carolingian Empire
was divided, these people found themselves in the eastern part, known as East Francia or Regnum Teutonicum, and over time became known as Germans
. The area was divided into the stem duchies
of Swabia
(Alamannia
), Franconia
, Saxony
and Bavaria
(including Carinthia
). Later, the Holy Roman Empire
would be constituted largely, but not exclusively of these regions.
(literally Settlement in the East), also known as the German eastward expansion or East colonization refers to the expansion of German culture, language, states, and settlements to vast regions of Northeastern, East Central and Eastern Europe, previously inhabited since the Great Migrations
by Balts, Romanians
, Hungarians and, since about the 8th century, the Slavs
. The affected territory stretched roughly from modern Estonia
in the North to modern Slovenia
in the South.
Population growth during the High Middle Ages
stimulated the movement of peoples from the Rhenish
, Flemish
, and Saxon
territories of the Holy Roman Empire
eastwards into the less-populated Baltic region and Poland
. These movements were supported by the German nobility, the Slavic kings and dukes, and the medieval Church. The majority of this settlement was peaceful, although it sometimes took place at the expense of Slavs and pagan Balts (see Northern Crusades
). Ostsiedlung accelerated along the Baltic with the advent of the Teutonic Order. Likewise, in Styria and Carinthia
, German communities took form in areas inhabited by Slovenes.
In the middle of the 14th century, the settling progress slowed as a result of the Black Death
; in addition, the most arable and promising regions were largely occupied. Local Slavic leaders in late Medieval Pomerania
and Silesia
continued inviting German settlers to their territories.
In the outcome, all previously Wendish
territory were settled by a German majority and the Wends were almost completely assimilated. In areas further east, substantial German minorities were established, which either kept their customs or were assimilated by the host population. The density of villages and towns increased dramatically. German town law
was introduced to most towns of the area, regardless of the percentage of German inhabitants.
. The league was a Low-German-speaking military alliance of trading
guild
s that established and maintained a trade monopoly
over the Baltic
and to a certain extent the North Sea
. Hanseatic towns and trade stations usually hosted relatively large German populations, with merchant dynasties being the wealthiest and political dominant fractions.
ruled Prussia
through their monastic state
. As a consequence, German settlement accelerated along the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea
. These areas, centered around Gdansk
(Danzig) and Königsberg
, remained one of the largest closed German settlement area outside the Holy Roman Empire
and would only be included in the German Empire
as East
and West Prussia
in 1871.
' density of settlements was higher than today's.
, regardless of their ethnicity. In fact, the vast majority of Olęder villages in Poland were settled by ethnic Germans, usually Lutherans
, who spoke the Low German
dialect called Plautdietsch
.
With the decline of the Ottoman Empire
, German settlers were called into devastated areas of Hungary
, by then comprising a larger area than today, in the late 17th century. The Danube Swabians
settled in Swabian Turkey
and other areas, more settlers were called in even throughout the 18th century, in part to secure Hungary's frontier with the Ottomans. The Banat Swabians
and Satu Mare Swabians
are examples of Danube Swabian settlers from the 18th century.
An influx of Danube Swabians also occurred toward the adriatic coast in what would later become Yugoslavia
.
Settlers from Salzkammergut
were called into Transsylvania to repopulate areas devastated by the wars with the Turks. They became known as Transylvanian Landler
.
and therefore became known as Volga Germans. Others settled toward the coast of the Black Sea
(Black Sea Germans
, including Bessarabia Germans
, Dobrujan Germans
and Crimea Germans
) and the Caucasus
area (Caucasus Germans
). These settlements occurred throughout the late 18th and the 19th centuries.
In the late 19th century, many Vistula Germans
(or Olędrzy
) immigrated to Volhynia
, as did descendants of early Mennonite settlers, whose ancestors had lived in West Prussia
since the Ostsiedlung
. Prussia
imposed heavy taxes due to their pacifist beliefs. In Russia, they became hence known as Russian Mennonites.
According to the 1926 (1939) census, there were 1,238,000 (1,424,000) Germans living in the Soviet Union
, respectively.
who by then had become an ally of the German Empire
. Those settling in the Istanbul
area became known as Bosporus Germans
.
Certain parts of Eastern Europe, especially those close to the border of Germany contained areas in which ethnic Germans constituted a majority.
The latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century saw the rise of nationalism
in Europe. Previously, a country consisted largely of whatever peoples lived on the land that was under the dominion of a particular ruler. Thus, as principalities and kingdoms grew through conquest and marriage, a ruler could wind up with peoples of many different ethnicities under his dominion.
The concept of nationalism was based on the idea of a "people" who shared a common bond through race, religion, language and culture. Furthermore, nationalism asserted that each "people" had a right to its own nation. Thus, much of European history in the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can be understood as efforts to realign national boundaries with this concept of "one people, one nation".
In 1871, the German Empire
was founded, partly as a German nation-state. This is closely associated with chancellor Otto von Bismarck
. While the empire included German settled Prussia
n regions formerly outside of its predecessors, it also included areas with Danish, Kashub and other minorities. In some areas, such as the Province of Posen
or the southern part of Upper Silesia
, the majority of the population were Poles
. On the other hand, ethnic German Austria
remained outside the empire, and so did many German-settled or mixed regions of Eastern and Central Europe. Most German settled regions of South Central and Southeastern Europe were instead included in the multi-ethnic Habsburg monarchy
of Austria-Hungary.
(notably to the Ruhr area
and Cologne
), a phenomenon termed Ostflucht
. As a consequence, these migrations increased the percentage of the Polish population in Posen
and West Prussia
. Driven by nationalist intentions, the Prussia
n state established a Settlement Commission as countermeasure, that was to settle more Germans in these regions. In total 21,886 families (154,704 people) out of planned 40,000 were settled by the end of its existence.
The history of the forced expulsions of the Polish population is further explored in the Expulsion of Poles by Germany
.
, there were isolated groups of Germans as far southeast as the Bosporus
(Turkey
), Georgia
, and Azerbaijan
. After the war, Germany's and Austria-Hungary's loss of territory meant that more Germans than ever were minorities in various countries, the treatment they received varied from country to country, and they were, in places subject to resentful persecution from former enemies of Germany. Perceptions of this persecution filtered back into Germany, where reports were exploited and amplified by the Nazi party as part of their drive to national popularity as savior of the German people.
The advance of allied German Empire
and Habsburg monarchy
forces into the Russian Empire's territory
triggered actions of flight, evacuation and deportation of the population living in or near the combat zone. Russian Germans became subject to severe measures because of their ethnicity, including forced resettlement and deportation to Russia's East, ban of German language
from public life (including books and newspapers), and denial of economical means (jobs and land property) based on "liquidation laws" issued since 1915; also Germans (as well as the rest of the population) were hit by "burned soil" tactics of the retreating Russians. About 300,000 Russian Germans became subject to deportations to Siberia
and the Bashkir steppe
, of those 70,000-200,000 were Germans from Volhynia
, 20,000 were Germans from Podolia
, 10,000 were Germans from the Kiev
area, and another 11,000 were Germans from the Chernihiv
area.
From Russian areas controlled by the German, Austrian and Hungarian forces, large scale resettlements of Germans to these areas were organized by Fürsorgeverein ("Welfare Union"), resettling 60,000 Russian Germans, and Deutsche Arbeiterzentrale ("German Workers' Bureau"), resettling 25,000-40,000 Russian Germans. Two thirds of these persons were resettled to East Prussia
, most of the remaining in the northeastern provinces of Prussia
and Mecklenburg
.
When Poland regained its independence after World War I
, the Poles hoped to regain the city of Danzig to provide the free access to the sea which they had been promised by the Allies
on the basis of Woodrow Wilson
's "Fourteen Points
". However, since the population of the city was predominantly German, it was not placed under Polish sovereignty, but became the Free City of Danzig
, an independent quasi-state under the auspices of the League of Nations
, governed by its German residents but with its external affairs largely under Polish control. The Free City had its own constitution, national anthem, parliament (Volkstag), and government (Senat). It issued its own stamps and currency, bearing the legend "Freie Stadt Danzig" and symbols of the city's maritime orientation and history.
From the Polish Corridor
, many ethnic Germans were forced to leave throughout the 1920s and 1930s, while Poles settled in the region building the sea port city Gdynia
(Gdingen) next to Danzig.
The vast majority of Danzig's population favoured eventual return to Germany. In the early 1930s the Nazi
Party capitalized on these pro-German sentiments, and in 1933 garnered 38 percent of vote for the Danzig Volkstag. Thereafter, the Nazis under the Bavaria
-born Gauleiter
Albert Forster
achieved dominance in the city government - which, nominally, was still overseen by the League of Nations' High Commissioner.
Nazi demands, at their minimum, would have seen the return of Danzig to Germany and a one kilometer, state-controlled route for easier access across the Polish Corridor, from Pomerania
to Danzig (and from there to East Prussia
). Originally, the Poles had rejected this proposal, but later appeared willing to negotiate (as did the British) by August. By this time, however, Hitler had Soviet backing and had decided to attack Poland. Germany feigned an interest in diplomacy (delaying the Case White deadline twice), to try to drive a wedge between Britain and Poland.
in Germany had led to the concepts of Pan-Germanism
and Drang nach Osten
, which in part gave rise to the concept of Lebensraum
.
German nationalists
used the existence of large German minorities in other countries as a basis for territorial claims. Many of the propaganda
themes of the Nazi regime against Czechoslovakia
and Poland
claimed that the ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche
) in those territories were persecuted. There were many incidents of persecution of Germans in the interwar period, including the French invasion of Germany proper in the 1920s. The German state was weak until 1933 and could not even protect itself under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The status of ethnic Germans, and the lack of contiguity of German majority lands resulted in numerous repatriation pacts whereby the German authorities would organize population transfers (especially the Nazi-Soviet population transfers
arranged between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, and others with Benito Mussolini's Italy) so that both Germany and the other country would increase their homogeneity.
However, these population transfers were considered but a drop in the pond, and the "Heim ins Reich" rhetoric over the continued disjoint status of enclaves such as Danzig and Königsberg was an agitating factor in the politics leading up to World War II, and is considered by many to be among the major causes of Nazi aggressiveness and thus the war. Adolf Hitler
used these issues as a pretext for waging wars of aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland.
The status of ethnic Germans, and the lack of contiguity resulted in numerous repatriation pacts whereby the German authorities would organize population transfers (especially the Nazi-Soviet population transfers
arranged between Adolf Hitler
and Joseph Stalin
, and others with Benito Mussolini
's Italy) so that both Germany and the other country would increase their "ethnic homogeneity". However, this was but a drop in the pond, and the Heim ins Reich
rhetoric over the continued disjoint status of enclaves such as Danzig and Königsberg
was an agitating factor in the politics leading up to World War II
, and is considered by many to be among the major causes of Nazi aggressiveness and thus the war.
and others who were forced to resettle west of the Curzon line
. The Molotov Ribbentrop Pact had defined "spheres of interest", assigning the states between Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union
to either one of those.
Except for Memelland, the Baltic states
were assigned to the Soviet Union, and Germany started pulling out the Volksdeutsche population after reaching respective agreements with Estonia
and Latvia
in October 1939. The Baltic Germans were to be resettled in occupied Poland and compensated for their losses with confiscated property at their new settlements. Though resettlement was voluntary, most Germans followed the call because they feared repression once the Soviets would move in. Eventually, this actually happened to the ones who stayed. The Baltic Germans were moved to Germany's northeastern port cities by ship. Poles were expelled from West Prussia
to make space available for resettlement, but due to quarrels with the Gauleiter
Albert Forster
, resettlement stalled and further "repatriants" were moved to Posen
.
province of South Tyrol
. With an initial thought to resettle the population in occupied Poland or the Crimea, they were actually moved to places in nearby Austria
and Bavaria
. Also affected were German-speakers from other areas in northern Italy, like the Kanaltal and Grödnertal valleys. Resettlement stopped with the collapse of Mussolini's regime and the subsequent occupation of Italy by Nazi Germany.
to distinguish them from Germans from within the Third Reich, the Reichsdeutsche), who often fought on the side of the Nazi regime - some were drafted, others volunteered or worked through the paramilitary organisations such as Selbstschutz
, which supported the German invasion of Poland and murdered tens of thousands of Poles. In places such as Yugoslavia
, Germans were drafted by their country of residence, served loyally, and were even held as POWs by the Nazis, and yet later found themselves drafted again, this time by the Nazis after their takeover. Because it was technically not permissible to draft non-citizens, many ethnic Germans ended up being (oxymoronically) forcibly volunteered for the Waffen-SS
. In general, those closest to Nazi Germany
were the most involved in fighting for her, but the Germans in remote places like the Caucasus were likewise accused of collaboration.
in August 1944, the Eastern Front became relatively stable. Romania and Bulgaria had been forced to surrender and declare war on Germany. The Germans had lost Budapest and most of the rest of Hungary. The plains of Poland were now open to the Soviet Red Army. Starting on January 12, 1945, the Red Army began the Vistula-Oder Offensive
which was followed a day later by the start of the Red Army's East Prussian Offensive
.
German populations in Eastern Europe took flight from the advancing Red Army
, resulting in a great population shift. After the final Soviet offensives began in January, 1945, hundreds of thousands of German refugees, many of whom had fled to Danzig by foot from East Prussia
(see evacuation of East Prussia
), tried to escape through the city's port in a large-scale evacuation that employed hundreds of German cargo and passenger ships. Some of the ships were sunk by the Soviets, including the Wilhelm Gustloff
, after an evacuation was attempted at neighboring Gdynia
. In the process, tens of thousands of refugees were killed.
Cities such as Danzig also endured heavy Western Allied
and Soviet bombardment. Those who survived and could not escape encountered the Red Army
. On 30 March 1945, the Soviets captured the city and left it in ruins.http://www.gdansk.pl/en/article.php?category=453&article=926&history=453:
The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by the US
, Britain
and the Soviets at the Yalta Conference
, shortly before the end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open; the western Allies also accepted in general the principle of the Oder River as the future western border of Poland and of population transfer as the way to prevent future border disputes. The open question was whether the border should follow the eastern or western Neisse rivers, and whether Stettin, the traditional seaport of Berlin, should remain German or be included in Poland. The western Allies sought to place the border on the eastern Neisse, but Stalin insisted that the border should be on the western Neisse.
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the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union placed the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line (Poland referred to by the Polish communist government as the "Western Territories" or "Regained Territories") as formally under Polish administrative control. It was anticipated that a final peace treaty
would follow shortly and either confirm this border or determine whatever alterations might be agreed upon.
The final agreements in effect compensated Poland for 187,000 km² located east of the Curzon line
with 112,000 km² of former German territories. The northerneastern third of East Prussia was directly annexed by the Soviet Union
and remains part of Russia to this day.
It was also decided that all Germans remaining in the new and old Polish territory should be expelled, to prevent any claims of minority rights. Among the provisions of the Potsdam Conference was a section that provided for the orderly transfer of German populations. The specific wording of this section was as follows:
and ethnic cleansing
of German nationals (Reichsdeutsche) and ethnic Germans
(Volksdeutsche
) from the former eastern territories of Germany, former Sudetenland
and other areas across Europe in the first five years after World War II
.
It was the largest of a number of expulsions
in various Central and Eastern European countries affecting a number of nationalities. The Big Three
had agreed on a policy of expulsions, and the Soviet Union
implemented the policy with American and British
acquiescence. The policy had been agreed on by the Allies as part of the reconfiguration of postwar Europe
.
As the Red Army
advanced towards Germany at the end of World War II, a considerable exodus of German refugee
s began from the areas near the front lines. Many Germans
fled their areas of residence under vague and haphazardly implemented evacuation orders of the Nazi German government in 1943, 1944, and in early 1945, or based on their own decisions to leave in 1945–1948. Others remained and were later forced to leave by local authorities. Census figures in 1950 place the total number of ethnic Germans still living in Eastern Europe at approximately 2.6 million, about 12 percent of the pre-war total.
The majority of the flights and expulsions occurred in Czechoslovakia
, Poland
and the European Soviet Union
. Others occurred in territories of northern Yugoslavia (predominantly in the Vojvodina region
), and other regions of Central
and Eastern Europe
.
The total number of the Germans expelled after the war will remain unknown, but was estimated by various scientific approaches. Most of the past research provided a combined estimate of 13.5-16.5 million people, including those that were evacuated by German authorities, fled or were killed during the war. However, recent research places the number at above 12 million, including all those who fled during the war or migrated later, forcibly or otherwise, to both the Western and Eastern zones of Germany and to Austria.
Recent analyses have led some historians to conclude that the actual number of deaths attributable to the flight and expulsions was in the range of 500,000 to 1.1 million. The earlier higher figures, up to 3.2 million, typically include all war-related deaths of ethnic Germans between 1939–45, including those who served in the German armed forces.
When Romania
signed a peace treaty with the Soviets in 1944, the German military began withdrawing the Transylvanian Saxons
from Transylvania; this operation was most thorough with the Saxons of the Nösnerland
. Around 100,000 Germans fled before the Soviet Red Army
, but Romania did not conduct the expulsion of Germans as did neighboring countries at war's end. However, more than 80,000 Saxons were arrested by the Soviet Army and sent to labour camps in Siberia
for alleged cooperation with Germany.
Most of those belonging to the Yugoslavian-German minority were interned at camps and eventually expelled from the country. The majority went to Austria and West Germany. However, there were a number of people who stayed, because they were married to local partners. These people and their descendants were no longer officially considered a part of the German population.
) from the land east of the Oder-Neisse found refuge in both West Germany and East Germany. Refugees who had fled voluntarily but were later refused to return are often not distinguished from those who were forcibly deported, just as people born to German parents that moved into areas under German occupation either on their own or as Nazi colonists.
In a document signed 50 years ago the Heimatvertriebene organisations have also recognized the plight of the different groups of people living in today's Poland who were by force resettled there. The Heimatvertriebene are just one of the groups of millions of other people, from many different countries, who all found refuge in today's Germany.
Some of the expellees are active in politics and belong to the political right-wing. Many others do not belong to any organizations, but they continue to maintain what they call a lawful right to their homeland. The vast majority pledged to work peacefully towards that goal while rebuilding post-war Germany and Europe.
The expellees are still highly active in German politics, and are one of the major political factions of the nation, with still around 2 million members. The president of their organization is as of 2004 still a member of the national parliament.
Although expellees (in German Heimatvertriebene
) and their descendants were active in West German politics, the prevailing political climate within West Germany was that of atonement for Nazi
actions. However, the CDU
governments have shown considerable support for the expellees and German civilian victims.
(152,897 people according to the 2002 census) has minority rights on the basis of the Polish - German treaty and minority law. German parties are not subject to the 5% threshold during the Sejm
elections so Germans are able to obtain two seats. There are German speakers throughout Poland, but only the voivodeship of Opole/Oppeln has a larger concentration.
controlled German government considered the Oder-Neisse line
to be completely unacceptable. Even the Social Democrats of the SPD
initially refused to accept the Oder-Neisse line. The 1991 Polish-German border agreement finalized the Oder-Neisse line as the Polish-German border. The agreement gave to minority groups in both countries several rights, such as the right to use national surnames, speak their native languages, and attend schools and churches of their choice. These rights had been denied previously on the basis that the individual had already chosen the country in which they wanted to live.
published a poll from the Allensbach Institute
which estimated that 61% of Poles believed Germans would try to get back territories that were formerly under German control or demand compensation http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/vorab/0,1518,383359,00.html,http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/swiat/1,34180,3002683.html.
There are also some worries among Poles that rich descendants of the expelled Germans would buy the land the Polish state confiscated in 1945. It is believed that this may result in large price increases, since the current Polish land price is low compared to Western Europe. This led to Polish restrictions on the sale of property to foreigners, including Germans: special permission is needed. This policy is comparable to similar restrictions on the Baltic Åland Islands
. These restrictions will be lifted 12 years after the 2004 accession of Poland to the European Union
, i.e. on May 1, 2016. The restrictions are weak, they are not valid for companies and certain types of properties.
The attempts by German organisations to build a Centre Against Expulsions
dedicated to German people's alleged suffering during World War II has led Polish politicians and activists to propose a Center for Martyrology of Polish Nation (called also Center for the Memory of Suffering of the Polish Nation) that would document the systematical oppression conducted on Polish people by German state during World War II and which would serve to educate German people about atrocities their state and regime conducted on their neighbours. However, this proposal was attacked and rejected by German politicians http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/swiat/1,34239,3124740.html.
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.
The Czech Republic has introduced a law in 2002 that guarantees the use of native minority languages (incl.German)as official languages in municipalities where autochthonous linguistic groups make up at least 10% of the population. Besides the use in dealings with officials and in courts the law also allows for bilingual signage and guarantees education in the native language. The law so far only exists on paper and has not been implemented anywhere, neither in the Polish speaking Tesin/Cieszyn area nor in Western and Northern Bohemia where a handful of towns still have in excess of 10% German speakers.
The remaining tiny German minority in the Czech Republic has been granted some rights on paper, however the actual use of the language in dealings with officials is usually not possible. There is no bilingual education system in Western and Northern Bohemia, where the German minority is most concentrated. The Czech authorities have enacted a unique hurdle in their minority act.
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.
, at that time a candidate for president of Czechoslovakia (he was elected one day later), suggested that Czechoslovakia should apologize for the expulsion of ethnic Germans after World War II. Most of other politicians of the country did not agree, and there was also no reply from leaders of Sudeten German organizations. Later, the German President Richard von Weizsacker
answered this by apologizing to Czechoslovakia during his visit to Prague
on March 1990 after Václav Havel repeated his apology characterizing the expulsion as "the mistakes and sins of our fathers". However, the Beneš decrees
continue to remain in force in Czechoslovakia.
In Czech-German relations, the topic has been effectively closed by the
Czech-German declaration of 1997. One principle of the declaration was that parties will not burden their relations with political and legal issues which stem from the past.
However, some expelled Sudeten Germans or their descendants are demanding return of their former property, which was confiscated after the war. Several such cases have been taken to Czech courts. As confiscated estates usually have new inhabitants, some of whom have lived there for more than 50 years, attempts to return to a pre-war state may cause fear. The topic comes to life occasionally in Czech politics. Like in Poland, worries and restrictions concerning land purchases exist in the Czech Republic
. According to a survey by the Allensbach Institut in November 2005, 38% of Czechs believe Germans want to regain territory they lost or will demand compensation.
. Due to this emigration from Romania the population of Germans in Romania is dwindling (359,109 in 1977 and only 60,088 in 2002).
The Germans (Transylvanian Saxons
, Banat Swabians
, Sathmar Swabians, Bukovina Germans
, Transylvanian Landler
, Zipser Germans
, and Regat Germans
) remaining in Romania are represented by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania
.
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
is rooted in centuries of history, with the settling in northeastern Europe of Germanic peoples
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
predating even the founding of the Roman Empire. The presence of the independent German states in the region (particularly Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
), and later the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
but also in other multi-ethnic countries such as Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Imperial Russia, etc. demonstrates the extent and duration of German-speaking settlements. In the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, the German populations in these parts of Europe are commonly referred to as Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
. The number of ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe dropped dramatically as the result of the German exodus from Eastern Europe
German exodus from Eastern Europe
The German exodus from Eastern Europe describes the dramatic reduction of ethnic German populations in lands to the east of present-day Germany and Austria. The exodus began in the aftermath of World War I and was implicated in the rise of Nazism. It culminated in expulsions of Germans from...
. However, there are still a substantial number of ethnic Germans in the countries that are now Germany and Austria's neighbors to the east—Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, and Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. In addition, there are or have been significant populations in such areas as Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
.
Early Middle Ages settlement area
In the early Middle AgesEarly Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
, Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
had subdued a variety of Germanic peoples
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
in Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
dwelling in an area roughly bordered by the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
in the South, the Vosges mountains
Vosges mountains
For the department of France of the same name, see Vosges.The Vosges are a range of low mountains in eastern France, near its border with Germany. They extend along the west side of the Rhine valley in a northnortheast direction, mainly from Belfort to Saverne...
in the West, the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
and Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
River in the North and the Saale
Saale
The Saale, also known as the Saxon Saale and Thuringian Saale , is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the Main, or the Saale in Lower Saxony, a tributary of the Leine.-Course:The Saale...
River in the East. These inhomogeneous Germanic peoples comprised several tribes and groups who either formed, stayed or migrated into this area during the migration period
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
. After the Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...
was divided, these people found themselves in the eastern part, known as East Francia or Regnum Teutonicum, and over time became known as Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
. The area was divided into the stem duchies
Stem duchy
Stem duchies were essentially the domains of the old German tribes of the area, associated with the Frankish Kingdom, especially the East, in the Early Middle Ages. These tribes were originally the Franks, the Saxons, the Alamanni, the Burgundians, the Thuringii, and the Rugii...
of Swabia
Duke of Swabia
The following is a list of Dukes of Swabia in southwest Germany.Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, and its dukes were thus among the most powerful magnates of Germany. The most notable family to hold Swabia were the Hohenstaufen, who held it, with a brief...
(Alamannia
Alamannia
Alamannia or Alemannia was the territory inhabited by the Germanic Alamanni after they broke through the Roman limes in 213.The Alamanni expanded from the Main basin during the 3rd century, raiding the Roman provinces and settling on the left bank of the Rhine from the 4th century.Ruled by...
), Franconia
Franconia
Franconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a small part of southern Thuringia, and a region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Tauberfranken...
, Saxony
Duchy of Saxony
The medieval Duchy of Saxony was a late Early Middle Ages "Carolingian stem duchy" covering the greater part of Northern Germany. It covered the area of the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt and most of Schleswig-Holstein...
and Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
(including Carinthia
Duchy of Carinthia
The Duchy of Carinthia was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, then the first newly created Imperial State beside the original German stem duchies....
). Later, the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
would be constituted largely, but not exclusively of these regions.
Medieval settlements (Ostsiedlung)
The medieval German OstsiedlungOstsiedlung
Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...
(literally Settlement in the East), also known as the German eastward expansion or East colonization refers to the expansion of German culture, language, states, and settlements to vast regions of Northeastern, East Central and Eastern Europe, previously inhabited since the Great Migrations
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
by Balts, Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
, Hungarians and, since about the 8th century, the Slavs
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
. The affected territory stretched roughly from modern Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
in the North to modern Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
in the South.
Population growth during the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
stimulated the movement of peoples from the Rhenish
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
, Flemish
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, and Saxon
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
territories of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
eastwards into the less-populated Baltic region and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. These movements were supported by the German nobility, the Slavic kings and dukes, and the medieval Church. The majority of this settlement was peaceful, although it sometimes took place at the expense of Slavs and pagan Balts (see Northern Crusades
Northern Crusades
The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were crusades undertaken by the Christian kings of Denmark and Sweden, the German Livonian and Teutonic military orders, and their allies against the pagan peoples of Northern Europe around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea...
). Ostsiedlung accelerated along the Baltic with the advent of the Teutonic Order. Likewise, in Styria and Carinthia
Duchy of Carinthia
The Duchy of Carinthia was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, then the first newly created Imperial State beside the original German stem duchies....
, German communities took form in areas inhabited by Slovenes.
In the middle of the 14th century, the settling progress slowed as a result of the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
; in addition, the most arable and promising regions were largely occupied. Local Slavic leaders in late Medieval Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
and Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
continued inviting German settlers to their territories.
In the outcome, all previously Wendish
Wends
Wends is a historic name for West Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It does not refer to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it is used...
territory were settled by a German majority and the Wends were almost completely assimilated. In areas further east, substantial German minorities were established, which either kept their customs or were assimilated by the host population. The density of villages and towns increased dramatically. German town law
German town law
German town law or German municipal concerns concerns town privileges used by many cities, towns, and villages throughout Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages.- Town law in Germany :...
was introduced to most towns of the area, regardless of the percentage of German inhabitants.
Areas settled during Ostsiedlung
The following areas saw German settlement during the Ostsiedlung:- within current GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
: BrandenburgBrandenburgBrandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, SaxonySaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, Saxony-AnhaltSaxony-AnhaltSaxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...
, HolsteinHolsteinHolstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany.... - the former eastern territories of Germany: PomeraniaPomeraniaPomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
, East Brandenburg, East PrussiaEast PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
, SilesiaSilesiaSilesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław... - SudetenlandSudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
(Sudeten GermansSudeten Germans- Importance of Sudeten Germans :Czechoslovakia was inhabited by over 3 million ethnic Germans, comprising about 23 percent of the population of the republic and about 29.5% of Bohemia and Moravia....
) - Transsylvania (Transylvanian SaxonsTransylvanian SaxonsThe Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards.The colonization of Transylvania by Germans was begun by King Géza II of Hungary . For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the...
) - Carpathian MountainsCarpathian MountainsThe Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
(Carpathian GermansCarpathian GermansCarpathian Germans , sometimes simply called Slovak Germans , are a group of German language speakers on the territory of present-day Slovakia...
) - Memelland, EstoniaEstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
and LatviaLatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
(Baltic Germans) - PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(see History of Poland (966–1385))
-
- WalddeutscheWalddeutscheWalddeutsche Germans , sometimes simply called Polish Germans, the name for a group of people, mostly of German origin, who settled during the 14th-17th century on the territory of present-day Sanockie Pits, Poland, a region which was previously only sparsely inhabited because the land was...
- BulgariaBulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
(see Germans in BulgariaGermans in BulgariaGermans are a minority ethnic group in Bulgaria . Although according to the 2001 census they only numbered 436, the settlement of Germans in Bulgaria has a long and eventful history and comprises several waves, the earliest in the Middle Ages....
) - SloveniaSloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
- and others
- Bulgaria
- Walddeutsche
Hanseatic League
Between the 13th and 17th centuries, trade in the Baltic Sea and Eastern Central Europe became dominated by Germans through the Hanseatic LeagueHanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
. The league was a Low-German-speaking military alliance of trading
Trade
Trade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
s that established and maintained a trade monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
over the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
and to a certain extent the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
. Hanseatic towns and trade stations usually hosted relatively large German populations, with merchant dynasties being the wealthiest and political dominant fractions.
Teutonic Knights
From the second half of the 13th century to the 15th century, the crusading Teutonic KnightsTeutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
ruled Prussia
Prussia (region)
Prussia is a historical region in Central Europe extending from the south-eastern coast of the Baltic Sea to the Masurian Lake District. It is now divided between Poland, Russia, and Lithuania...
through their monastic state
Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights
The State of the Teutonic Order, , also Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights or Ordensstaat , was formed in 1224 during the Northern Crusades, the Teutonic Knights' conquest of the pagan West-Baltic Old Prussians in the 13th century....
. As a consequence, German settlement accelerated along the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
. These areas, centered around Gdansk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
(Danzig) and Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
, remained one of the largest closed German settlement area outside the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
and would only be included in the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
as East
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
and West Prussia
West Prussia
West Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
in 1871.
Thirty Year's War aftermath
When the Thirty Year's War devastated Central Europe, many areas were completely deserted, others suffered severe population drops. These areas were in part resettled by Germans from areas hit less. Some of the deserted villages, however, were not repopulated - that is why the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
' density of settlements was higher than today's.
Poland
In the 16th and 17th centuries, settlers from the Netherlands and Friesland, often of Mennonite faith, founded villages in Royal Prussia, along the Vistula River and its tributaries, and in Kujawy, Mazovia and Wielkopolska. The law under which these villages were organized was called the Dutch or Olęder law; such villages were called Holendry or Olędry. The inhabitants of such villages were called OlędrzyOledrzy
Olędrzy is a Polish term used to describe persons, often of Dutch or German origin or ancestry, who lived in settlements in Poland organized under a particular type of law....
, regardless of their ethnicity. In fact, the vast majority of Olęder villages in Poland were settled by ethnic Germans, usually Lutherans
Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland
The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland , the largest Protestant body in Poland, is rooted in the Reformation. The first Lutheran sermons were held in 1518, and in 1523 the first Lutheran dean, Johann Heß, was called to the city of Breslau, whence Lutheranism was spread into the...
, who spoke the Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
dialect called Plautdietsch
Plautdietsch
Plautdietsch, or Mennonite Low German, was originally a Low Prussian variety of East Low German, with Dutch influence, that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia, today Polish territory. The word is another pronunciation of Plattdeutsch, or Low German...
.
Danube Swabians of Hungary and the Balkans
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, German settlers were called into devastated areas of Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, by then comprising a larger area than today, in the late 17th century. The Danube Swabians
Danube Swabians
The Danube Swabians is a collective term for the German-speaking population who lived in the former Kingdom of Hungary, especially alongside the Danube River valley. Because of different developments within the territory settled, the Danube Swabians cannot be seen as a unified people...
settled in Swabian Turkey
Swabian Turkey
The term Swabian Turkey describes a region in southeastern Transdanubia in Hungary delimited by the Danube , the Drava , and Lake Balaton inhabited by an ethnic German minority...
and other areas, more settlers were called in even throughout the 18th century, in part to secure Hungary's frontier with the Ottomans. The Banat Swabians
Banat Swabians
The Banat Swabians are an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe, part of the Danube Swabians. They emigrated in the 18th century to what was then the Austrian Banat province, which had been left sparsely populated by the wars with Turkey. This once strong and important ethnic Banat Swabian...
and Satu Mare Swabians
Satu Mare Swabians
The Satu Mare Swabians are a German ethnic group that lives near the city of Satu Mare in Romania, and forms part of the broader group known as Danube Swabians. Most were originally farmers in Upper Swabia who came to Hungary/Partium during the 18th century East Colonisation...
are examples of Danube Swabian settlers from the 18th century.
An influx of Danube Swabians also occurred toward the adriatic coast in what would later become Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
.
Settlers from Salzkammergut
Salzkammergut
The Salzkammergut is a resort area located in Austria. It stretches from City of Salzburg to the Dachstein mountain range, spanning the federal states of Upper Austria , Salzburg , and Styria . The main river of the region is the Traun, a tributary of the Danube...
were called into Transsylvania to repopulate areas devastated by the wars with the Turks. They became known as Transylvanian Landler
Transylvanian Landler
The Landler or Transylvanian Landler were Protestants, who were deported from the Salzkammergut Region of Austria to Transylvania near Hermannstadt from 1734 to 1737 under Emperor Charles VI....
.
Russian Empire
Since 1762, Russia called in German settlers. Some settled the Volga area northwest of KazakhstanKazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
and therefore became known as Volga Germans. Others settled toward the coast of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
(Black Sea Germans
Black Sea Germans
The Black Sea Germans are ethnic Germans who left their homeland in the 18th and 19th centuries, and settled in territories off the north coast of the Black Sea, mostly in southern Ukraine...
, including Bessarabia Germans
Bessarabia Germans
----The Bessarabia Germans are an ethnic group who lived in Bessarabia between 1814 and 1940. Between 1814 and 1842, 9000 of them immigrated from the German areas Baden, Württemberg, Alsace, Bavaria and some Prussian areas of modern-day Poland, to the Russian government of Bessarabia at the Black...
, Dobrujan Germans
Dobrujan Germans
The Dobrujan Germans were an ethnic German group, within the larger category of Black Sea Germans, for over one hundred years. German-speaking colonists entered the approximately 23,000 km² area of Dobruja around 1840 and left during the relocation of 1940...
and Crimea Germans
Crimea Germans
The Crimea Germans were ethnic German settlers who were invited to settle in the Crimea as part of the East Colonization.-History:From 1783 onwards, there was a systematic settlement of Russians, Ukrainians, and Germans to the Crimean Peninsula in order to weaken the Crimean Tatar population.The...
) and the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
area (Caucasus Germans
Caucasus Germans
Caucasus Germans are part of the German minority in Russia and the Soviet Union. They migrated to the Caucasus largely in the first half of the 19th century and settled in the North Caucasus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and in the region of Kars...
). These settlements occurred throughout the late 18th and the 19th centuries.
In the late 19th century, many Vistula Germans
Vistula Germans
Vistula Germans are ethnic Germans who had settled in what became known after the 1863 Polish rebellion as the Vistula Territory...
(or Olędrzy
Oledrzy
Olędrzy is a Polish term used to describe persons, often of Dutch or German origin or ancestry, who lived in settlements in Poland organized under a particular type of law....
) immigrated to Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
, as did descendants of early Mennonite settlers, whose ancestors had lived in West Prussia
West Prussia
West Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
since the Ostsiedlung
Ostsiedlung
Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...
. Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
imposed heavy taxes due to their pacifist beliefs. In Russia, they became hence known as Russian Mennonites.
According to the 1926 (1939) census, there were 1,238,000 (1,424,000) Germans living in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, respectively.
Turkey
Since the 1840s, Germans moved to TurkeyTurkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
who by then had become an ally of the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
. Those settling in the Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
area became known as Bosporus Germans
Bosporus Germans
Bosporus Germans are those ethnic Germans living and settled in Istanbul since the second half of the 19th century.The first generation came a few decades before and especially during the three political visits of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Constantinople , the capital city of the Ottoman Empire Bosporus...
.
1871-1914
By the 19th century, every city of even modest size as far east as Russia had a German quarter and a Jewish quarter. Travellers along any road would pass through, for example, a German village, then a Czech village, then a Polish village, etc., depending on the region.Certain parts of Eastern Europe, especially those close to the border of Germany contained areas in which ethnic Germans constituted a majority.
German Empire and European nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
in Europe. Previously, a country consisted largely of whatever peoples lived on the land that was under the dominion of a particular ruler. Thus, as principalities and kingdoms grew through conquest and marriage, a ruler could wind up with peoples of many different ethnicities under his dominion.
The concept of nationalism was based on the idea of a "people" who shared a common bond through race, religion, language and culture. Furthermore, nationalism asserted that each "people" had a right to its own nation. Thus, much of European history in the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can be understood as efforts to realign national boundaries with this concept of "one people, one nation".
In 1871, the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
was founded, partly as a German nation-state. This is closely associated with chancellor Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
. While the empire included German settled Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n regions formerly outside of its predecessors, it also included areas with Danish, Kashub and other minorities. In some areas, such as the Province of Posen
Province of Posen
The Province of Posen was a province of Prussia from 1848–1918 and as such part of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918. The area was about 29,000 km2....
or the southern part of Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...
, the majority of the population were Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
. On the other hand, ethnic German Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
remained outside the empire, and so did many German-settled or mixed regions of Eastern and Central Europe. Most German settled regions of South Central and Southeastern Europe were instead included in the multi-ethnic Habsburg monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
of Austria-Hungary.
Ostflucht
Starting in the late 19th century, an inner-Prussian migration took place from the very rural eastern to the prospering urban western provinces of PrussiaProvinces of Prussia
The Provinces of Prussia constituted the main administrative divisions of Prussia. Following the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the various princely states in Germany gained their nominal sovereignty, but the reunification process that culminated in...
(notably to the Ruhr area
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...
and Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
), a phenomenon termed Ostflucht
Ostflucht
The Ostflucht was a movement by residents of the former eastern territories of Germany, such as East Prussia, West Prussia, Silesia and Province of Posen beginning around 1850, to the more industrialized western German Rhine and Ruhr provinces...
. As a consequence, these migrations increased the percentage of the Polish population in Posen
Province of Posen
The Province of Posen was a province of Prussia from 1848–1918 and as such part of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918. The area was about 29,000 km2....
and West Prussia
West Prussia
West Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
. Driven by nationalist intentions, the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n state established a Settlement Commission as countermeasure, that was to settle more Germans in these regions. In total 21,886 families (154,704 people) out of planned 40,000 were settled by the end of its existence.
The history of the forced expulsions of the Polish population is further explored in the Expulsion of Poles by Germany
Expulsion of Poles by Germany
The Expulsion of Poles by Germany was a prolonged anti-Polish campaign of ethnic cleansing by violent and terror-inspiring means lasting nearly a century. It began with the concept of Pan-Germanism developed in early 19th century and continued in the racial policy of Nazi Germany asserting the...
.
World War I
By World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, there were isolated groups of Germans as far southeast as the Bosporus
Bosporus
The Bosphorus or Bosporus , also known as the Istanbul Strait , is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with the Dardanelles...
(Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
), Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, and Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
. After the war, Germany's and Austria-Hungary's loss of territory meant that more Germans than ever were minorities in various countries, the treatment they received varied from country to country, and they were, in places subject to resentful persecution from former enemies of Germany. Perceptions of this persecution filtered back into Germany, where reports were exploited and amplified by the Nazi party as part of their drive to national popularity as savior of the German people.
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
and Habsburg monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
forces into the Russian Empire's territory
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
triggered actions of flight, evacuation and deportation of the population living in or near the combat zone. Russian Germans became subject to severe measures because of their ethnicity, including forced resettlement and deportation to Russia's East, ban of German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
from public life (including books and newspapers), and denial of economical means (jobs and land property) based on "liquidation laws" issued since 1915; also Germans (as well as the rest of the population) were hit by "burned soil" tactics of the retreating Russians. About 300,000 Russian Germans became subject to deportations to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and the Bashkir steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
, of those 70,000-200,000 were Germans from Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
, 20,000 were Germans from Podolia
Podolia
The region of Podolia is an historical region in the west-central and south-west portions of present-day Ukraine, corresponding to Khmelnytskyi Oblast and Vinnytsia Oblast. Northern Transnistria, in Moldova, is also a part of Podolia...
, 10,000 were Germans from the Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
area, and another 11,000 were Germans from the Chernihiv
Chernihiv
Chernihiv or Chernigov is a historic city in northern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Chernihiv Oblast , as well as of the surrounding Chernihivskyi Raion within the oblast...
area.
From Russian areas controlled by the German, Austrian and Hungarian forces, large scale resettlements of Germans to these areas were organized by Fürsorgeverein ("Welfare Union"), resettling 60,000 Russian Germans, and Deutsche Arbeiterzentrale ("German Workers' Bureau"), resettling 25,000-40,000 Russian Germans. Two thirds of these persons were resettled to East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
, most of the remaining in the northeastern provinces of Prussia
Provinces of Prussia
The Provinces of Prussia constituted the main administrative divisions of Prussia. Following the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the various princely states in Germany gained their nominal sovereignty, but the reunification process that culminated in...
and Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
.
Danzig and the Polish corridor
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the Poles hoped to regain the city of Danzig to provide the free access to the sea which they had been promised by the Allies
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
on the basis of Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's "Fourteen Points
Fourteen Points
The Fourteen Points was a speech given by United States President Woodrow Wilson to a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1918. The address was intended to assure the country that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe...
". However, since the population of the city was predominantly German, it was not placed under Polish sovereignty, but became the Free City of Danzig
Free City of Danzig
The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and surrounding areas....
, an independent quasi-state under the auspices of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
, governed by its German residents but with its external affairs largely under Polish control. The Free City had its own constitution, national anthem, parliament (Volkstag), and government (Senat). It issued its own stamps and currency, bearing the legend "Freie Stadt Danzig" and symbols of the city's maritime orientation and history.
From the Polish Corridor
Polish Corridor
The Polish Corridor , also known as Danzig Corridor, Corridor to the Sea or Gdańsk Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia , which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany from the province of East...
, many ethnic Germans were forced to leave throughout the 1920s and 1930s, while Poles settled in the region building the sea port city Gdynia
Gdynia
Gdynia is a city in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland and an important seaport of Gdańsk Bay on the south coast of the Baltic Sea.Located in Kashubia in Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk and suburban communities, which together...
(Gdingen) next to Danzig.
The vast majority of Danzig's population favoured eventual return to Germany. In the early 1930s the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
Party capitalized on these pro-German sentiments, and in 1933 garnered 38 percent of vote for the Danzig Volkstag. Thereafter, the Nazis under the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
-born Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
Albert Forster
Albert Forster
Albert Maria Forster was a Nazi German politician. Under his administration as the Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia during the Second World War, the local non-German population suffered ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and forceful Germanisation...
achieved dominance in the city government - which, nominally, was still overseen by the League of Nations' High Commissioner.
Nazi demands, at their minimum, would have seen the return of Danzig to Germany and a one kilometer, state-controlled route for easier access across the Polish Corridor, from Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
to Danzig (and from there to East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
). Originally, the Poles had rejected this proposal, but later appeared willing to negotiate (as did the British) by August. By this time, however, Hitler had Soviet backing and had decided to attack Poland. Germany feigned an interest in diplomacy (delaying the Case White deadline twice), to try to drive a wedge between Britain and Poland.
Nazi claims to Lebensraum and resettlements of Germans before the war
In the 19th century, the rise of romantic nationalismRomantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
in Germany had led to the concepts of Pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify the German-speaking populations of Europe in a single nation-state known as Großdeutschland , where "German-speaking" was taken to include the Low German, Frisian and Dutch-speaking populations of the Low...
and Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten was a term coined in the 19th century to designate German expansion into Slavic lands. The term became a motto of the German nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century...
, which in part gave rise to the concept of Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
.
German nationalists
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
used the existence of large German minorities in other countries as a basis for territorial claims. Many of the propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
themes of the Nazi regime against Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
claimed that the ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
) in those territories were persecuted. There were many incidents of persecution of Germans in the interwar period, including the French invasion of Germany proper in the 1920s. The German state was weak until 1933 and could not even protect itself under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The status of ethnic Germans, and the lack of contiguity of German majority lands resulted in numerous repatriation pacts whereby the German authorities would organize population transfers (especially the Nazi-Soviet population transfers
Nazi-Soviet population transfers
The Nazi–Soviet population transfers were a series of population transfers between 1939 and 1941 of tens of thousands of ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians in an agreement according to the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.-...
arranged between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, and others with Benito Mussolini's Italy) so that both Germany and the other country would increase their homogeneity.
However, these population transfers were considered but a drop in the pond, and the "Heim ins Reich" rhetoric over the continued disjoint status of enclaves such as Danzig and Königsberg was an agitating factor in the politics leading up to World War II, and is considered by many to be among the major causes of Nazi aggressiveness and thus the war. Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
used these issues as a pretext for waging wars of aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Nazi settlement concepts during World War II (1939-1945)
Nazi-Soviet population transfers
The Nazi–Soviet population transfers were a series of population transfers between 1939 and 1941 of tens of thousands of ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians in an agreement according to the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.-...
arranged between Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, and others with Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's Italy) so that both Germany and the other country would increase their "ethnic homogeneity". However, this was but a drop in the pond, and the Heim ins Reich
Heim ins Reich
The Heim ins Reich initiative was a policy pursued by Adolf Hitler starting in 1938 and was one of the factors leading to World War II. The initiative attempted to convince people of German descent living outside of the German Reich that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into a...
rhetoric over the continued disjoint status of enclaves such as Danzig and Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
was an agitating factor in the politics leading up to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and is considered by many to be among the major causes of Nazi aggressiveness and thus the war.
Resettlement of Germans from the Baltic States and Bessarabia
German populations affected by the population exchanges were primarily the Baltic Germans and Bessarabia GermansBessarabia Germans
----The Bessarabia Germans are an ethnic group who lived in Bessarabia between 1814 and 1940. Between 1814 and 1842, 9000 of them immigrated from the German areas Baden, Württemberg, Alsace, Bavaria and some Prussian areas of modern-day Poland, to the Russian government of Bessarabia at the Black...
and others who were forced to resettle west of the Curzon line
Curzon Line
The Curzon Line was put forward by the Allied Supreme Council after World War I as a demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia and was supposed to serve as the basis for a future border. In the wake of World War I, which catalysed the Russian Revolution of 1917, the...
. The Molotov Ribbentrop Pact had defined "spheres of interest", assigning the states between Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to either one of those.
Except for Memelland, the Baltic states
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
were assigned to the Soviet Union, and Germany started pulling out the Volksdeutsche population after reaching respective agreements with Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
and Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
in October 1939. The Baltic Germans were to be resettled in occupied Poland and compensated for their losses with confiscated property at their new settlements. Though resettlement was voluntary, most Germans followed the call because they feared repression once the Soviets would move in. Eventually, this actually happened to the ones who stayed. The Baltic Germans were moved to Germany's northeastern port cities by ship. Poles were expelled from West Prussia
West Prussia
West Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
to make space available for resettlement, but due to quarrels with the Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
Albert Forster
Albert Forster
Albert Maria Forster was a Nazi German politician. Under his administration as the Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia during the Second World War, the local non-German population suffered ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and forceful Germanisation...
, resettlement stalled and further "repatriants" were moved to Posen
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
.
Resettlement of Germans from Italy
On October 6, 1939, Hitler announced a resettlement program for the German-speaking population of the ItalianItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
province of South Tyrol
South Tyrol
South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...
. With an initial thought to resettle the population in occupied Poland or the Crimea, they were actually moved to places in nearby Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. Also affected were German-speakers from other areas in northern Italy, like the Kanaltal and Grödnertal valleys. Resettlement stopped with the collapse of Mussolini's regime and the subsequent occupation of Italy by Nazi Germany.
German "Volksdeutsche" in Nazi-occupied Europe
The actions of Germany ultimately had extremely negative consequences for most ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe (termed VolksdeutscheVolksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
to distinguish them from Germans from within the Third Reich, the Reichsdeutsche), who often fought on the side of the Nazi regime - some were drafted, others volunteered or worked through the paramilitary organisations such as Selbstschutz
Selbstschutz
Selbstschutz stands for two organisations:# A name used by a number of paramilitary organisations created by ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe# A name for self-defence measures and units in ethnic German, Austrian, and Swiss civil defence....
, which supported the German invasion of Poland and murdered tens of thousands of Poles. In places such as Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, Germans were drafted by their country of residence, served loyally, and were even held as POWs by the Nazis, and yet later found themselves drafted again, this time by the Nazis after their takeover. Because it was technically not permissible to draft non-citizens, many ethnic Germans ended up being (oxymoronically) forcibly volunteered for the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
. In general, those closest to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
were the most involved in fighting for her, but the Germans in remote places like the Caucasus were likewise accused of collaboration.
German exodus after Nazi Germany's defeat
The 20th century wars annihilated most Eastern and East Central European German settlements, and the remaining sparse pockets of settlement were subject to emigration to Germany in the late 20th century for economical reasons.Evacuation, and flight of Germans during the end of World War II
By late 1944, after the Soviet success of the Belorussian OffensiveBelorussian Offensive
Operation Bagration was the codename for the Soviet 1944 Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation during World War II, which cleared German forces from the Belorussian SSR and eastern Poland between 22 June and 19 August 1944....
in August 1944, the Eastern Front became relatively stable. Romania and Bulgaria had been forced to surrender and declare war on Germany. The Germans had lost Budapest and most of the rest of Hungary. The plains of Poland were now open to the Soviet Red Army. Starting on January 12, 1945, the Red Army began the Vistula-Oder Offensive
Vistula-Oder Offensive
The Vistula–Oder Offensive was a successful Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in the European Theatre of World War II; it took place between 12 January and 2 February 1945...
which was followed a day later by the start of the Red Army's East Prussian Offensive
East Prussian Offensive
The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front . It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May...
.
German populations in Eastern Europe took flight from the advancing Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, resulting in a great population shift. After the final Soviet offensives began in January, 1945, hundreds of thousands of German refugees, many of whom had fled to Danzig by foot from East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
(see evacuation of East Prussia
Evacuation of East Prussia
The evacuation of East Prussia refers to the evacuation of the German civilian population and military personnel in East Prussia and the Klaipėda region between 20 January, and March 1945, as part of the evacuation of German civilians towards the end of World War II...
), tried to escape through the city's port in a large-scale evacuation that employed hundreds of German cargo and passenger ships. Some of the ships were sunk by the Soviets, including the Wilhelm Gustloff
Wilhelm Gustloff (ship)
The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German KdF flagship during 1937-1945, constructed by the Blohm & Voss shipyards. It sank after being torpedoed by the Soviet submarine on 30 January 1945....
, after an evacuation was attempted at neighboring Gdynia
Gdynia
Gdynia is a city in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland and an important seaport of Gdańsk Bay on the south coast of the Baltic Sea.Located in Kashubia in Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk and suburban communities, which together...
. In the process, tens of thousands of refugees were killed.
Cities such as Danzig also endured heavy Western Allied
Western Allies
The Western Allies were a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It generally includes the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China, the Soviet Union,...
and Soviet bombardment. Those who survived and could not escape encountered the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. On 30 March 1945, the Soviets captured the city and left it in ruins.http://www.gdansk.pl/en/article.php?category=453&article=926&history=453:
The Yalta Conference
As it became evident that the Allies were going to defeat Nazi Germany decisively, the question arose as to how to redraw the borders of Eastern European countries after the war. In the context of those decisions, the problem arose of what to do about ethnic minorities within the redrawn borders.The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the Soviets at the Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
, shortly before the end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open; the western Allies also accepted in general the principle of the Oder River as the future western border of Poland and of population transfer as the way to prevent future border disputes. The open question was whether the border should follow the eastern or western Neisse rivers, and whether Stettin, the traditional seaport of Berlin, should remain German or be included in Poland. The western Allies sought to place the border on the eastern Neisse, but Stalin insisted that the border should be on the western Neisse.
The Potsdam Conference
At the Potsdam ConferencePotsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union placed the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line (Poland referred to by the Polish communist government as the "Western Territories" or "Regained Territories") as formally under Polish administrative control. It was anticipated that a final peace treaty
Peace treaty
A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, that formally ends a state of war between the parties...
would follow shortly and either confirm this border or determine whatever alterations might be agreed upon.
The final agreements in effect compensated Poland for 187,000 km² located east of the Curzon line
Curzon Line
The Curzon Line was put forward by the Allied Supreme Council after World War I as a demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia and was supposed to serve as the basis for a future border. In the wake of World War I, which catalysed the Russian Revolution of 1917, the...
with 112,000 km² of former German territories. The northerneastern third of East Prussia was directly annexed by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and remains part of Russia to this day.
It was also decided that all Germans remaining in the new and old Polish territory should be expelled, to prevent any claims of minority rights. Among the provisions of the Potsdam Conference was a section that provided for the orderly transfer of German populations. The specific wording of this section was as follows:
- The Three Governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner.
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The expulsion of Germans after World War II refers to the forced migrationForced migration
Forced migration refers to the coerced movement of a person or persons away from their home or home region...
and ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
of German nationals (Reichsdeutsche) and ethnic Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
(Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
) from the former eastern territories of Germany, former Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
and other areas across Europe in the first five years after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
It was the largest of a number of expulsions
World War II evacuation and expulsion
Forced deportation, mass evacuation and displacement of peoples took place in many of the countries involved in World War II. These were caused both by the direct hostilities between Axis and Allied powers, and the border changes enacted in the pre-war settlement...
in various Central and Eastern European countries affecting a number of nationalities. The Big Three
Big three
Big Three is a term used colloquially to refer to the three most prominent entities in any given grouping or subject.It may refer to:- People :* The leaders of the three major Allies of World War I: David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson...
had agreed on a policy of expulsions, and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
implemented the policy with American and British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
acquiescence. The policy had been agreed on by the Allies as part of the reconfiguration of postwar Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
As the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
advanced towards Germany at the end of World War II, a considerable exodus of German refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
s began from the areas near the front lines. Many Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
fled their areas of residence under vague and haphazardly implemented evacuation orders of the Nazi German government in 1943, 1944, and in early 1945, or based on their own decisions to leave in 1945–1948. Others remained and were later forced to leave by local authorities. Census figures in 1950 place the total number of ethnic Germans still living in Eastern Europe at approximately 2.6 million, about 12 percent of the pre-war total.
The majority of the flights and expulsions occurred in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and the European Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Others occurred in territories of northern Yugoslavia (predominantly in the Vojvodina region
Vojvodina
Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
), and other regions of Central
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
.
The total number of the Germans expelled after the war will remain unknown, but was estimated by various scientific approaches. Most of the past research provided a combined estimate of 13.5-16.5 million people, including those that were evacuated by German authorities, fled or were killed during the war. However, recent research places the number at above 12 million, including all those who fled during the war or migrated later, forcibly or otherwise, to both the Western and Eastern zones of Germany and to Austria.
Recent analyses have led some historians to conclude that the actual number of deaths attributable to the flight and expulsions was in the range of 500,000 to 1.1 million. The earlier higher figures, up to 3.2 million, typically include all war-related deaths of ethnic Germans between 1939–45, including those who served in the German armed forces.
When Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
signed a peace treaty with the Soviets in 1944, the German military began withdrawing the Transylvanian Saxons
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards.The colonization of Transylvania by Germans was begun by King Géza II of Hungary . For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the...
from Transylvania; this operation was most thorough with the Saxons of the Nösnerland
Nösnerland
The Nösnerland is an historic region of northeastern Transylvania in present-day Romania centered between the Bistriţa and Mureş rivers.Beginning in the 12th century and increasingly in the 13th-14th centuries, Hungarian kings invited German colonists to settle in the eastern lands of the Kingdom...
. Around 100,000 Germans fled before the Soviet Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, but Romania did not conduct the expulsion of Germans as did neighboring countries at war's end. However, more than 80,000 Saxons were arrested by the Soviet Army and sent to labour camps in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
for alleged cooperation with Germany.
Most of those belonging to the Yugoslavian-German minority were interned at camps and eventually expelled from the country. The majority went to Austria and West Germany. However, there were a number of people who stayed, because they were married to local partners. These people and their descendants were no longer officially considered a part of the German population.
Expelled Germans in postwar Germany
After World War II many expellees (German: HeimatvertriebeneHeimatvertriebene
Heimatvertriebene are those around 12 million ethnic Germans who fled or were expelled after World War II from parts of Germany annexed by Poland and Russia, and from other countries, who found refuge in both West and East Germany, and Austria...
) from the land east of the Oder-Neisse found refuge in both West Germany and East Germany. Refugees who had fled voluntarily but were later refused to return are often not distinguished from those who were forcibly deported, just as people born to German parents that moved into areas under German occupation either on their own or as Nazi colonists.
In a document signed 50 years ago the Heimatvertriebene organisations have also recognized the plight of the different groups of people living in today's Poland who were by force resettled there. The Heimatvertriebene are just one of the groups of millions of other people, from many different countries, who all found refuge in today's Germany.
Some of the expellees are active in politics and belong to the political right-wing. Many others do not belong to any organizations, but they continue to maintain what they call a lawful right to their homeland. The vast majority pledged to work peacefully towards that goal while rebuilding post-war Germany and Europe.
The expellees are still highly active in German politics, and are one of the major political factions of the nation, with still around 2 million members. The president of their organization is as of 2004 still a member of the national parliament.
Although expellees (in German Heimatvertriebene
Heimatvertriebene
Heimatvertriebene are those around 12 million ethnic Germans who fled or were expelled after World War II from parts of Germany annexed by Poland and Russia, and from other countries, who found refuge in both West and East Germany, and Austria...
) and their descendants were active in West German politics, the prevailing political climate within West Germany was that of atonement for Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
actions. However, the CDU
Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...
governments have shown considerable support for the expellees and German civilian victims.
Polish-German relations
Relations between Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany have generally been cordial since 1991.Status of the German minority in Poland
The remaining German minority in PolandGerman minority in Poland
The registered German minority in Poland consists of 152,900 people, according to a 2002 census.The German language is used in certain areas in Opole Voivodeship , where most of the minority resides...
(152,897 people according to the 2002 census) has minority rights on the basis of the Polish - German treaty and minority law. German parties are not subject to the 5% threshold during the Sejm
Sejm
The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
elections so Germans are able to obtain two seats. There are German speakers throughout Poland, but only the voivodeship of Opole/Oppeln has a larger concentration.
Finalization of the Polish-German border
For decades, the CDUChristian Democratic Union (Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...
controlled German government considered the Oder-Neisse line
Oder-Neisse line
The Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
to be completely unacceptable. Even the Social Democrats of the SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
initially refused to accept the Oder-Neisse line. The 1991 Polish-German border agreement finalized the Oder-Neisse line as the Polish-German border. The agreement gave to minority groups in both countries several rights, such as the right to use national surnames, speak their native languages, and attend schools and churches of their choice. These rights had been denied previously on the basis that the individual had already chosen the country in which they wanted to live.
Restricting sale of property to foreigners
In November 2005 Der SpiegelDer Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
published a poll from the Allensbach Institute
Allensbach Institute
The Allensbach Institute, formally the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research or Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Polling , is a private conservativeopinion polling institute based in Allensbach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany....
which estimated that 61% of Poles believed Germans would try to get back territories that were formerly under German control or demand compensation http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/vorab/0,1518,383359,00.html,http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/swiat/1,34180,3002683.html.
There are also some worries among Poles that rich descendants of the expelled Germans would buy the land the Polish state confiscated in 1945. It is believed that this may result in large price increases, since the current Polish land price is low compared to Western Europe. This led to Polish restrictions on the sale of property to foreigners, including Germans: special permission is needed. This policy is comparable to similar restrictions on the Baltic Åland Islands
Åland Islands
The Åland Islands form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. They are situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and form an autonomous, demilitarised, monolingually Swedish-speaking region of Finland...
. These restrictions will be lifted 12 years after the 2004 accession of Poland to the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
, i.e. on May 1, 2016. The restrictions are weak, they are not valid for companies and certain types of properties.
The attempts by German organisations to build a Centre Against Expulsions
Centre Against Expulsions
The Centre Against Expulsions was a planned German documentation centre for expulsions and ethnic cleansing, particularly the expulsion of Germans after World War II. Since March 19, 2008 the name of the project is Sichtbares Zeichen gegen Flucht und Vertreibung...
dedicated to German people's alleged suffering during World War II has led Polish politicians and activists to propose a Center for Martyrology of Polish Nation (called also Center for the Memory of Suffering of the Polish Nation) that would document the systematical oppression conducted on Polish people by German state during World War II and which would serve to educate German people about atrocities their state and regime conducted on their neighbours. However, this proposal was attacked and rejected by German politicians http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/swiat/1,34239,3124740.html.
German minority in the Czech Republic
There are about 40,000 Germans remaining in the Czech Republic. 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
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
was different from that in the Czech lands, in that the number of Germans was considerably lower and that the Germans from Slovakia
Carpathian Germans
Carpathian Germans , sometimes simply called Slovak Germans , are a group of German language speakers on the territory of present-day 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.
The Czech Republic has introduced a law in 2002 that guarantees the use of native minority languages (incl.German)as official languages in municipalities where autochthonous linguistic groups make up at least 10% of the population. Besides the use in dealings with officials and in courts the law also allows for bilingual signage and guarantees education in the native language. The law so far only exists on paper and has not been implemented anywhere, neither in the Polish speaking Tesin/Cieszyn area nor in Western and Northern Bohemia where a handful of towns still have in excess of 10% German speakers.
The remaining tiny German minority in the Czech Republic has been granted some rights on paper, however the actual use of the language in dealings with officials is usually not possible. There is no bilingual education system in Western and Northern Bohemia, where the German minority is most concentrated. The Czech authorities have enacted a unique hurdle in their minority act.
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.
Czech-German relations
On 28 December 1989, Václav HavelVáclav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
, at that time a candidate for president of Czechoslovakia (he was elected one day later), suggested that Czechoslovakia should apologize for the expulsion of ethnic Germans after World War II. Most of other politicians of the country did not agree, and there was also no reply from leaders of Sudeten German organizations. Later, the German President Richard von Weizsacker
Richard von Weizsäcker
Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker , known as Richard von Weizsäcker, is a German politician . He served as Governing Mayor of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984, and as President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1984 to 1994...
answered this by apologizing to Czechoslovakia during his visit to Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
on March 1990 after Václav Havel repeated his apology characterizing the expulsion as "the mistakes and sins of our fathers". However, the Beneš decrees
Beneš decrees
Decrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...
continue to remain in force in Czechoslovakia.
In Czech-German relations, the topic has been effectively closed by the
Czech-German declaration of 1997. One principle of the declaration was that parties will not burden their relations with political and legal issues which stem from the past.
However, some expelled Sudeten Germans or their descendants are demanding return of their former property, which was confiscated after the war. Several such cases have been taken to Czech courts. As confiscated estates usually have new inhabitants, some of whom have lived there for more than 50 years, attempts to return to a pre-war state may cause fear. The topic comes to life occasionally in Czech politics. Like in Poland, worries and restrictions concerning land purchases exist in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. According to a survey by the Allensbach Institut in November 2005, 38% of Czechs believe Germans want to regain territory they lost or will demand compensation.
German minority in Hungary
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. In 2001, 62 105 people declared to be German http://www.nepszamlalas2001.hu/eng/volumes/18/tables/load1_30_1.html and 88 209 people had affinity with cultural values, traditions of the German nationality.http://www.nepszamlalas2001.hu/eng/volumes/18/tables/load1_31.htmlGerman minority in Romania
Numerous Romanian Germans have emigrated to Germany, especially after 1989, and are represented by the Landsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen in DeutschlandLandsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen in Deutschland
The Landsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen in Deutschland is a German organisation formed in 1946 by those who were resettled in Germany from Transylvania...
. Due to this emigration from Romania the population of Germans in Romania is dwindling (359,109 in 1977 and only 60,088 in 2002).
The Germans (Transylvanian Saxons
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards.The colonization of Transylvania by Germans was begun by King Géza II of Hungary . For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the...
, Banat Swabians
Banat Swabians
The Banat Swabians are an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe, part of the Danube Swabians. They emigrated in the 18th century to what was then the Austrian Banat province, which had been left sparsely populated by the wars with Turkey. This once strong and important ethnic Banat Swabian...
, Sathmar Swabians, Bukovina Germans
Bukovina Germans
The Bukovina Germans were a German ethnic group that mainly lived from about 1780 to the 1940s in Bukovina, part of present-day western Ukraine and northern Romania...
, Transylvanian Landler
Transylvanian Landler
The Landler or Transylvanian Landler were Protestants, who were deported from the Salzkammergut Region of Austria to Transylvania near Hermannstadt from 1734 to 1737 under Emperor Charles VI....
, Zipser Germans
Zipser Germans
The Zipser Germans were/are a German-speaking ethnic group in former northern Kingdom of Hungary, now in Slovakia and in the northwest area of Romania called Maramureş. Those who did not escape from the Red Army were mostly expelled from Czechoslovakia....
, and Regat Germans
Regat Germans
Regat Germans or Old Kingdom Germans are an ethnic German group of the eastern and southern parts of Romania. The Regat is land that was part of Romania before the First World War...
) remaining in Romania are represented by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania
Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania
The Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania is a centrist political party representing the German minority in Romania. It was founded at the end of 1989. Despite originally being a German minority party, the party is popular also with many ethnic Romanians, notably in parts of Transylvania...
.