Germanisation: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Spread of the German language, people and culture}}

'''Germanisation''', or '''Germanization''', is the spread of the [[German language]], [[German people|people]], and [[German culture|culture]]. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when [[conservatism]] and [[ethnic nationalism]] went hand in hand. In [[linguistics]], Germanisation of non-German languages also occurs when they adopt many German words.

 

 

==Early history==

[[File:Deutsche_Ostsiedlung.png|thumb|300px|Map of the phases of German eastward expansion (8th to 14th century) based on the work of [[Walter Kuhn]], [[Nazi Party]] member and propagandist of the [[Germanisation in Poland (1939–1945)|Germanisation of Poland]]]]

Early Germanisation went along with the [[Ostsiedlung]] during the [[Middle Ages]] in [[Lüchow-Dannenberg|Hanoverian Wendland]], [[Mecklenburg-Vorpommern]], [[Lusatia]], and other areas, formerly inhabited by Slavic tribes – [[Polabian Slavs]] such as [[Obotrites]], [[Veleti]] and [[Sorbs]]. Early forms of Germanisation were recorded by German monks in manuscripts such as [[Chronicon Slavorum]].{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}

 

Outside of the HRE, the [[Old Prussians]], originally a [[Balts|Baltic]] ethnic group, were Germanised by the [[Teutonic Knights]] who adopted a very different approach. When the [[State of the Teutonic Order]] [[Teutonic takeover of Danzig|unexpectingly seized Polish Pomerelia by force and decimated its population]], launching at the same time a massive campaign to attract and ressetle to these areas as many German colonists as possible within a relatively short period. This event also produced the first historical record of a major German thinker openly calling for the genocide of the Polish people; the 14th-century German Dominican theologian [[John of Falkenberg|Johannes von Falkenberg]] argued on behalf of the Teutonic Order not only that Polish pagans should be killed, but that all Poles should be subject to genocide on the grounds that Poles were an inherently heretical race and that even the [[King of Poland]], [[Jogaila]], a Christian convert, ought to be murdered.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Donald Bloxham|author2=A. Dirk Moses|title=The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bEcTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA298|date=15 April 2010|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-923211-6|page=298}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Caterina Bruschi|author2=Peter Biller|title=Texts and the Repression of Medieval Heresy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SUbgiTVEiukC&pg=PA36|year=2003|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-1-903153-10-9|page=36}}</ref> The assertion that Poles were heretical was largely politically motivated as the Teutonic Order desired to conquer Polish lands despite Christianity having become the dominant religion in Poland centuries prior.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Jerzy Lukowski|author2=W. H. Zawadzki|title=A Concise History of Poland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HMylRh-wHWEC&pg=PA9|access-date=5 April 2012|date=6 July 2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-85332-3|pages=9–10}}</ref> Such views did not remain purely ideas but were also put into practice in the wake of events such as the [[Teutonic takeover of Danzig (Gdańsk)|Slaughter of Gdańsk]] whose German population only achieved the majority after local Polish population was murdered and a new settlement was built by Teutonic Knights.<ref>[[Stefan Maria Kuczyński|Stefan M. Kuczyński]], ''Bitwa pod Grunwaldem''. Katowice: ''Śląsk'' 1987, page 17. {{ISBN|8321605087}}</ref> The carnage was so extensive that it prompted the [[pope Clement V]] to condemn the Teutonic Knights in a [[papal bull|bull]] which charged them with committing a massacre {{blockquote|"Latest news were brought to my attention, that officials and brethren of the aforementioned [[Teutons|Teutonic]] order have hostilely intruded the lands of Our beloved son Wladislaw, duke of Cracow and Sandomierz, and in the town of Gdańsk killed more than ten thousand people with the sword, inflicting death on whining infants in cradles whom even the enemy of faith would have spared."<ref>{{cite book|first=Ulrich|last=Nieß|title=Hochmeister Karl von Trier (1311-1324). Stationen einer Karriere im Deutschen Orden|volume=47|series=Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens|year=1992|page=74}}. For the Latin original and a contemporary copy see [http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/Landesforschung/pub/PrUB/PrUB2.13.htm Jenks et al: Virtual PrUB 2.13] and the sources given by Nieß, p. 74, fn. 147, quote: "Novissime vero ad nostrum venit auditum, quod dicti preceptores et fratres hospitalis ejusdem dilecti filii nobisg) viri Wladislai Cracovie et Sandomirie ducis terram hostiliter subintrantes in civitate Gdansco ultra decem milia hominum gladio peremerunt infantibus vagientibus in cunis mortis exitium inferentes, quibus etiam hostis fidei pepercisset." Nieß translates this as follows: "Neuerdings aber gelangte zu unserer Kenntnis, daß die genannten Gebietiger und Brüder desselben Hospitals in das Land unseres (des edlen, ) geliebten Sohnes Wladyslaw, des Herzogs von Krakau und Sandomierz, feindlich eingedrungen sind und in der Stadt Danzig mehr als 10.000 Menschen mit dem Schwert getötet haben, dabei wimmernden Kindern in den Wiegen den Tod bringend, welche sogar der Feind des Glaubens geschont hätte."</ref><ref name=niess74>{{cite book|first=Ulrich|last=Nieß|title=Hochmeister Karl von Trier (1311-1324). Stationen einer Karriere im Deutschen Orden|volume=47|series=Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens|year=1992|page=74}}</ref>}}

 

The Teutonic Order did however not deliberately pursue Germanization. Germanization was rather the result of the colonial nature of the State. {{efn|{{cite book|first=Jörg|last= Hackmann|title=Ostpreußen und Westpreußen in deutscher und polnischer Sicht - Landeshistorie als beziehungsgeschichtliches Problem|isbn=9783447037662|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GHRBNSa71qIC|year=1996|publisher=Harrassowitz Verlag|place=Wiesbaden|pages=231}}: "Es könne aber ein starker deutscher Einfluß zur Ordenszeit festgestellt werden, dieser sei jedoch ein Ergebnis des kolonialen Staatscharakters und kein Ergebnis bewußter Germanisierung.[...] Górski warf weiter die Frage auf, ob von einer Germanisierungspolitik des Deutschen Ordens in Pommerellen gesprochen werden könne. Er verwies darauf, daß es eine solche Intention beim Orden nicht gab"}} This is corroborated by the fact that Order's politics also resulted in [[Polonization]] in some areas of the Teutonic State,{{efn|{{cite book|title=The Scientific World of Copernicus: On the Occasion of the 500th Anniversary of his Birth 1473–1973|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NX4JBgAAQBAJ|isbn=9789401026161|author=B. Biékowska|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|year=2012|pages=4}}: "The agricultural region of Warmia skirting the sea was settled by Germans and Germanized Baltic Prussians while the southern, forested area (together with Olsztyn), was occupied by settlers who arrived from neighboring Poland. [...]Surrounded by Polish villages, the urban population of southern Warmia was swiftly Polonized";:{{sfn|Hackmann|1996|p=231}} Daran anschließend schilderte er die Besiedlung, Bevölkerung, Religion sowie die Verfassung Preußens, wobei er sowohl Germanisierungs- wie Polonisierungsprozesse registrierte}} and [[Lithuanians|Lithuanization]] in other areas. Correspondingly, even in villages under German right, there were Polish farmers and even a Polish [[Schultheiß]] is recorded.<ref>{{cite book|title=Die ethnische Struktur der Gesellschaft im Ordensstaat im 13. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert|first=Jan|last= Powierski|series=Internationales Jahrbuch für Geschichts- und Geographie-Unterricht|year= 1975|volume=16|pages= 265–275}}</ref>

==Modern Germanisation==

===Differences in Austrian and Prussian approaches===

 

 

===Polish territories===

In 1825 August Jacob, a politician hostile to Poles, gained power over the newly created Provincial Educational Collegium in Poznan.<ref name="Zdrada"/> Across the Polish territories Polish teachers were removed, German educational programmes were introduced, and primary schooling was aimed at the creation of loyal Prussian citizens.<ref name="Zdrada"/> In 1825 the teacher's seminary in [[Bydgoszcz]] was Germanised.<ref name="Zdrada"/> Successive policies aimed at the elimination of non-German languages from public life and from academic settings, such as schools.<ref name="ReferenceA">Historism and Cultural Identity in the Rhine-Meuse Region, J. De Maeyer</ref> Subsequently, there was an intensification of Germanisation and persecution of Poles in the [[Province of Prussia]] and the [[Grand Duchy of Posen]] in 1830–41.

 

 

 

===Lithuania Minor===

Due to migration within the [[German Empire]] as many as 350,000 ethnic Poles made their way to the [[Ruhr area]] in the late 19th century, where they largely worked in the coal and iron industries. German authorities viewed them as a potential danger as a "suspected political and national"{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} element. All Polish workers had special cards and were under constant observation by German authorities. Their citizens' rights were also limited by the state.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5sUdzh98A44C&q=ruhr+poles&pg=PA11|title=Migration Past, Migration Future|isbn=9781571814074|access-date=23 April 2016|last1=Bade|first1=Klaus J.|last2=Weiner|first2=Myron|date=August 2001|publisher=Berghahn Books }}</ref>

 

 

===Other minorities===

==Contemporary Germanization==

===Interwar period===

 

===World War II===

====Plans====

{{Further|Gleichschaltung|Generalplan Ost|Umvolkung}}

 

The policy of Germanisation in the Nazi period carried an explicitly [[Nazism and race|ethno-racial]] rather than purely [[Nationalism|nationalist]] meaning, aiming for the spread of a "biologically superior" [[Aryan race]] rather than that of the German nation. This did not mean a total extermination of all people in eastern Europe, as it was regarded as having people of Aryan/Nordic descent, particularly among their ruling class.<ref name="Gumkowkski">[http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm HITLER'S PLANS FOR EASTERN EUROPE] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120527021449/http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm |date=27 May 2012 }}</ref> [[Himmler]] declared that no drop of German blood would be lost or left behind for an alien race.<ref name="The Dictators p543">[[Richard Overy]], ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia'', p543 {{ISBN|0-393-02030-4}}</ref> In Nazi documents even the term "German" can be problematic<!-- is this problematic as in it created ambiguity in administration at the time or because it is based in nazi racism? or both? -->, since it could be used to refer to people classified as "ethnic Germans" who spoke no German.<ref>Pierre Aycoberry, ''The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933–1945'', p 2, {{ISBN|1-56584-549-8}}</ref>

Inside Germany, [[propaganda]], such the film ''[[Heimkehr]]'', depicted these ethnic Germans as persecuted, and the use of military force as necessary to protect them.<ref>[[Erwin Leiser]], ''Nazi Cinema'' p69-71 {{ISBN|0-02-570230-0}}</ref> The exploitation of ethnic Germans as forced labour and persecution of them were major themes of the anti-Polish propaganda campaign of 1939, prior to the [[Invasion of Poland|invasion]].<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' p173 {{ISBN|0-399-11845-4}}</ref> The [[Bloody Sunday (1939)|bloody Sunday]] incident during the invasion was widely exploited as depicting the Poles as murderous towards Germans.<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' p289 {{ISBN|0-399-11845-4}}</ref>

 

* The grouping of Polish [[Gorals]] ("Highlanders") into the hypothetical [[Goralenvolk]], a project which was ultimately abandoned due to lack of support among the Goral population;

* The assignment of West Slavic [[Kashubians]] of Pomerania and [[Silesians]] of Silesia as ''[[Deutsche Volksliste]]'', as they were considered capable of assimilation into the German population{{snd}}several high-ranking Nazis deemed them to be descended from ancient [[Goths|Gothic]] peoples.<ref>Diemut Majer, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939–1945 Von Diemut Majer, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, JHU Press, 2003, p.240, {{ISBN|0-8018-6493-3}}.</ref>

====Selection and expulsion====

{{see also|Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany}}

 

 

[[File:Bundesarchiv R 49 Bild-0705, Polen, Herkunft der Umsiedler, Karte.jpg|300px|thumb|Origin of German colonisers in annexed Polish territories. Was set in action "[[Heim ins Reich]]".]]

 

 

====Settlement and Germanisation====

This colonisation involved 350,000 such [[Baltic Germans]] and 1.7 million Poles deemed Germanisable, including between one and two hundred thousand children who had been taken from their parents, and about 400,000 German settlers from the "Old Reich".<ref>Pierre Aycoberry, ''The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933–1945'', p 228, {{ISBN|1-56584-549-8}}</ref> Nazi authorities feared that these settlers would be tainted by their Polish neighbours and warned them not to let their "foreign and alien" surroundings have an impact on their Germanness. They were also settled in compact communities, which could be easily monitored by the police.<ref name="lukas20">[[Richard C. Lukas]], ''Forgotten Holocaust'' p20 {{ISBN|0-7818-0528-7}}</ref> Only families classified as "highly valuable" were kept together.<ref>Pierre Aycoberry, ''The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933–1945'', p 229, {{ISBN|1-56584-549-8}}</ref>

 

 

====Yugoslavia====

On 6 April 1941 Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis Powers. Part of the Slovene-settled territory was occupied by Nazi Germany. The Gestapo arrived on 16{{spaces}}April 1941 and were followed three days later by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who inspected Stari Pisker Prison in [[Celje]]. On 26{{spaces}}April, [[Adolf Hitler]], who encouraged his followers to "make this land German again", visited [[Maribor]]. Although the Slovenes had been deemed racially salvageable by the Nazis, the mainly Austrian authorities of the Carinthian and Styrian regions commenced a brutal campaign to destroy them as a nation.

 

The Nazis started a policy of violent Germanisation on Slovene territory, attempting to either discourage or entirely suppress Slovene culture. Their main task in Slovenia was the removal of part of population and Germanisation of the rest. Two organisations were instrumental in the Germanisation: the Styrian Homeland Union (''Steirischer Heimatbund'' – HS) and the Carinthian People's Union (''Kärtner Volksbund'' – KV).{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}

 

 

====USSR====

 

Plans to eliminate Slavs from Soviet territory to allow German settlement included starvation. Nazi leaders expected that millions would die after they [[Hunger Plan|removed food supplies]].<ref name="harvest45"/> This was regarded as advantageous by Nazi officials.<ref name="cecil199">[[Robert Cecil (British diplomat)|Robert Cecil]], ''The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology'' p199 {{ISBN|0-396-06577-5}}</ref> When Hitler received a report of many well-fed Ukrainian children, he declared that the promotion of contraception and abortion was urgently needed, and neither medical care nor education was to be provided.<ref>Robert Cecil, ''The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology'' p207 {{ISBN|0-396-06577-5}}</ref>

"Racially acceptable" children were taken from their families in order to be brought up as Germans.<ref>[http://www.shoaheducation.com/aryan.html Lebensraum, Aryanisation, Germanistion and Judenrein, Judenfrei: concepts in the holocaust or shoah<!-- Bot generated title -->]{{dead link|date=January 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Children were selected for "racially valuable traits" before being shipped to Germany.<ref name="aggression"/> Many Nazis were astounded at the number of Polish children found to exhibit "Nordic" traits, but assumed that all such children were genuinely German children, who had been [[Polonisation|Polonised]]. [[Hans Frank]] exhibited such views when he declared, "When we see a blue-eyed child we are surprised that she is speaking Polish."<ref name="ChildrenCry"/> The term used for them was ''wiedereindeutschungsfähig''—meaning capable of being re-Germanised.<ref>Milton, Sybil. [http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395115 "Non-Jewish Children in the Camps"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101215030206/http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395115 |date=15 December 2010 }}. Museum of Tolerance, ''Multimedia Learning Centre Online''. Annual 5, Chapter 2. Copyright © 1997, The [[Simon Wiesenthal Centre]].</ref> These might include the children of people executed for resisting Germanisation.<ref name="Gumkowkski"/> If attempts to Germanise them failed, or they were determined to be unfit, they would be killed to eliminate their value to the opponents of the Reich.<ref name="aggression"/>

 

 

Many children, particularly Polish and Slovenian, declared on being found by Allied forces that they were German.<ref name="cruel479">Nicholas, p 479</ref> Russian and Ukrainian children had been taught to hate their native countries and did not want to return.<ref name="cruel479"/>

The increasing cultural oppression in [[Lusatia]], [[Bohemia]], [[Moravia]], [[Silesia]], [[Pomerelia]], [[Greater Poland]], [[Lesser Poland]], [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]] and [[Slovenia]] driven by the German nationalism triggered as a reaction rise of their own nationalisms in the late 18th and 19th centuries. However, except for the Prussian and Austrian territories of Poland which lost statehood for a relatively brief period and maintained organised movements resiting vigorously Germanisation attempts, national and linguistic identities among the remaining nationalities barely survived the centuries-long cultural dominance of the Germans; for instance, the first modern grammar of the [[Czech language]] by [[Josef Dobrovský]] (1753–1829) – ''Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprach'' (1809) – was published in German because the Czech language was not used in academic scholarship.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} From the high Middle Ages until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 German had a strong impact on Slovene and many Germanisms are preserved in contemporary colloquial Slovene.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}

 

 

The majority of [[East Elbia]] affected by the medieval [[Ostsiedlung]] ceased being part of German-speaking Europe as a result of loss of the [[former eastern territories of Germany]] in accordance with the [[Potsdam Agreement]], with the ensuing re-[[Polonisation]], or in the case of East Prussia, re-[[Lithuania]]nisation, [[Polonisation]] and [[Russification]] of these regions, while the Austrian Germanisation of the [[Kingdom of Bohemia]] was reversed by the [[expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia]]. Although German irredentism was fuelled for some time after the war by the [[Federation of Expellees]], ultimately the concept of Germanisation became irrelevant in Germany and Austria upon introduction of ''[[Ostpolitik]]'' in the 1970s. Some German-speaking minorities continue though to exist in Europe, such as in the Polish [[Opole Voivodeship]] or in [[Romania]] and are being supported by the German Federal Government.

 

 

==See also==

 

==References==

{{Authority control}}

 

[[Category:German language]]

[[Category:Germany–Poland relations]]

[[Category:Historical linguistics]]