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{{Short description|Spread of the German language, people and culture}} | |||
{{POV|date=May 2008}} | |||
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2024}} | |||
'''Germanisation''' (also spelled '''Germanization''') refers to the spread of the ], ] and ] or policies which may have introduced these changes. It was a central plank of German liberal thinking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, at a period when ] and ] went hand-in-hand. In ], Germanisation also occurs when a word from the ] is adapted into a foreign language. | |||
{{distinguish|Germination}} | |||
{{Conservatism in Germany}} | |||
'''Germanisation''', or '''Germanization''', is the spread of the ], ], and ]. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when ] and ] went hand in hand. In ], Germanisation of non-German languages also occurs when they adopt many German words. | |||
Under the policies of states such as the ], ], the ], and the ], non-German minorities were often discouraged or even prohibited from using their native language,<ref>Interdiction of French language accompanied with fines and or jail, and destruction of any representation of France after the occupation of Alsace {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202001614/http://www.crdp-strasbourg.fr/data/histoire/alsace-39-45b/germanisation.php?parent=11|date=2 February 2017}}</ref> and had their traditions and culture suppressed in the name of ]. In addition, the Government also encouraged immigration from the ] to further upset the linguistic balance, but with varying degrees of success. In ], linguistic Germanisation was replaced by a policy of ] against certain ethnic groups like Poles, Baltic natives, and Czechoslovaks, even when they were already German-speaking. | |||
==Forms of Germanisation== | |||
Historically, there are very different forms and degrees of expansion of ] and elements of ]. There are examples of complete assimilation into German culture, as it happened with the pagan ] in the diocese of ] in the 11th century.{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} A perfect example of eclectic adoption of German culture is the field of law in Imperial and present-day ], which is organised very much to the model of the ].{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} Germanisation took place by cultural contact, by political decision of the adopting party (e.g. in the case of Japan), or (especially in the case of ] and ]) by force. | |||
==Forms== | |||
In Slavic countries, the term Germanisation is often understood solely as the process of acculturation of ] and ], after the conquests or by cultural contact in the early ], areas of the modern Southern Austria and Eastern Germany to the line of the ].{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} In ], forced resettlement of the ] by the ] and the Prussian state, as well as acculturation from immigrants of various European countries (], ], and Germans) contributed to the eventual extinction of the ] in the 17th century. | |||
Historically there are different forms and degrees of the expansion of the ] and of elements of German culture. There are examples of complete assimilation into German culture, as happened with the pagan ] in the ] (Franconia) in the 11th century.{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} An example of the eclectic adoption of German culture is the field of law in Imperial and present-day ], which is organised according to the model of the ].{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} Germanisation took place by cultural contact, by political decision of the adopting party, or by force.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} | |||
In Slavic countries, the term ''Germanisation'' is often understood to mean the process of acculturation of ]- and ]-language speakers – after conquest by or cultural contact with Germans in the early ]; especially the areas of modern southern ] and extant part of ] ].{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} In ], decimation and forced resettlement of the original Baltic ] by the ] as well as acculturation by immigrants from various European countries, primarily Germans, but also ] (Catholic ] and Protestant ] who both descended from ], as well as Catholic Powiślans who descended from Chełminians and ]), ] (]) and ], contributed to the eventual extinction of the ] in the 17th century. Germanisation in its modern form was conducted from the beginning of the 19th century as a set of Prussian/German and (to a lesser degree and for a shorter time) Austrian state policies of forceful imposition of German culture, language and people upon non-German people, Slavs in particular. | |||
Another form of Germanisation is the forceful imposition of German culture, language and people upon non-German people, Slavs in particular. | |||
Since the ] at the end of and after World War II, however, these territories have been mostly degermanised. | |||
==Historical Germanisation== | |||
===Early=== | |||
{{See also|Wendish Crusade|Northern Crusades}} | |||
]'' west border among ] and ]]] | |||
==Early history== | |||
Early Germanisation went along with the ] during the ], e.g. in ], ], ], and other areas, formerly inhabited by Slavic tribes - ] such as ], ] and ]. Relations of early forms of Germanisation was described by German monks in manuscripts like ]. | |||
{{See also|Germanisation of Gaul|Ostsiedlung|Germania Slavica|Wendish Crusade|Northern Crusades}} | |||
], ] member and propagandist of the ]]] | |||
Early Germanisation went along with the ] during the ] in ], ], ], and other areas, formerly inhabited by Slavic tribes – ] such as ], ] and ]. Early forms of Germanisation were recorded by German monks in manuscripts such as ].{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} | |||
Since the ], the Silesian ] and Pomeranian ] invited German settlers to settle in many areas constituting the ] prior to its fragmentation while the Santok Castellany was outright sold to ] by the Piast dukes of Greater Poland. As a result, ], ] (in the narrow sense) and ] joined the ], as a natural consequence becoming gradually Germanised in the following centuries.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}} Proto-Slovene was spoken in a much larger territory than modern Slovenia, which included most of the present-day Austrian states of Carinthia and Styria, as well as East Tyrol, the Val Pusteria in South Tyrol, and some parts of Upper and Lower Austria. By the 15th century, most of these areas had been gradually Germanised. | |||
] is better known as the Wendland, a designation referring to the ] of the ] from the Slavic tribe ] — the ] survived until the beginning of the 19th century in what is now the German state of ].<ref></ref> | |||
Historians have also noted that Ostsiedlung did not include deliberate Germanization, which in pre-national times was beyond imagination.{{efn|{{cite book|first=Eberhard|last=Straub|title=Eine kleine Geschichte Preußens|publisher=Klett-Cotta|year=2011|pages=24}} "Eine konsequente Germanisierung war nicht angestrebt . Eine bewusste "deutsche Kulturmission" wie im 19. Jahrhundert beschworen wurde, lag in vornationalen Epochen außerhalb des Vorstellungsvermögens"}} | |||
A complex process of Germanisation took place in ] after the defeat of Bohemian ] at the ] in 1620. The German prince and ], elected as ] by the Bohemian estates in 1619, was defeated by Catholic forces loyal to the ] Emperor, ]. Among the Bohemian lords who were punished and had their lands expropriated after Frederick's defeat in 1620 were German- and Czech-speaking landowners. | |||
Thus, this conflict was ] in nature, not national. Although the Czech language lost its significance as a written language in the aftermath of the events, it is doubtful that this was intended by the Habsburg rulers, whose aims were of a feudal and religious character | |||
Outside of the HRE, the ], originally a ] ethnic group, were Germanised by the ] who adopted a very different approach. When the ] ], 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 ] 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 ], ], 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 ] whose German population only achieved the majority after local Polish population was murdered and a new settlement was built by Teutonic Knights.<ref>], ''Bitwa pod Grunwaldem''. Katowice: ''Śląsk'' 1987, page 17. {{ISBN|8321605087}}</ref> The carnage was so extensive that it prompted the ] to condemn the Teutonic Knights in a ] which charged them with committing a massacre {{blockquote|"Latest news were brought to my attention, that officials and brethren of the aforementioned ] 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 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>}} | |||
Proto-Slovene language was spoken in a much larger territory than modern Slovene, which included most of the present-day Austrian states of Carinthia and Styria, as well as East Tyrol, the Val Pusteria in South Tyrol, and some areas of Upper and Lower Austria. By the 15th century, most of the these areas were gradually Germanized: the northern border of the Slovene-speaking territory stabilized on the line going from north of Klagenfurt to south of Villach and east of Hermagor in Carinthia, while in Styria it was pretty much identical with the current Austrian-Slovenian border. This linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when a second process of germanization took place, mostly in Carinthia. | |||
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 ] 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 ] in other areas. Correspondingly, even in villages under German right, there were Polish farmers and even a Polish ] 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> | |||
In Tyrol there was a germanisation of the ladino-romantsch of the Venosta Valley (now Italy) promoted by the Austria in the XVI century. There was made for avoiding contact with Protestants of the Grigioni canton. | |||
==Modern Germanisation== | |||
===Linguistic influences=== | |||
===Differences in Austrian and Prussian approaches=== | |||
The rise of nationalism that occurred in the late 18th and 19th centuries in ], ], ], ], ], and ] led to an increased sense of "pride" in national cultures during this time. However, centuries of cultural dominance of the Germans left a German mark on those societies; for instance, the first modern grammar of the ] by ] (1753–1829) – "Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprache" (1809) – was published in German because the Czech language was not used in academic scholarship. | |||
In respect to Austria, northern border of Slovene-speaking territory stabilised on a line from north of Klagenfurt to the south of Villach and east of Hermagor in Carinthia, while in Styria it closely followed the current Austrian-Slovenian border. This linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when the second process of Germanisation took place, mostly in Carinthia.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} Germanisation of the ] ] in Tyrol was also undertaken by Austria in the 16th century.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} Following the 1620 ], the ], at the time one of the last meaningful territories of the HRE not dominated yet by the German language, was subjected to two centuries of re] of the Czech lands accompanied by growing influence of German-speaking elites, at the expense of declining the Czech-speaking aristocracy, elite Czech language usage in general. Despite the great importance to ] of poets and writers of the era like ], Czech nationalist historians and writers such as ] have referred to the 17th and 18th century in the Czech lands as the Dark Age. As a further step, | |||
Emperor ] ({{reign|1780|90}}) sought to consolidate the territories of ] within the Holy Roman Empire with those remaining outside of it, to ], and to implement ] principles through ].<ref name=Country>{{cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/hutoc.html |title=A Country Study: Hungary – Hungary under the Habsburgs |access-date=14 April 2009 |work=] |publisher=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090428231424/http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/hutoc.html |archive-date=28 April 2009 |url-status=live }}</ref> He decreed that ] was to replace ] as the official language of Government.<ref name=Country/> ], however, perceived Joseph's language reforms as an act of ] and ], and they responded by insisting on using their ].<ref name=Country/> As a result, the lower ] launched a literary renaissance of the ] and culture.<ref name=Country/> These lesser nobles often questioned the loyalty of the magnates, less than half of whom were ethnic ], and many of these had become ] and German-speaking ]s.<ref name=Country/> The Hungarian national revival was so successful that the Government in ] did not learn anything from the failure of Emperor Joseph II's linguistic policies and, following the ], unwisely launched a coercive ] policy aimed at forcibly assimilating the many speakers of ''other'' ]s within the ], which ultimately triggered a ]. Anti-Hungarian and heritage language revival movements arose in ] among ]s, ]s, ]s, and ]s within the ],<ref name=Country/> triggering in Cisleithania the ] and ] movements, in both parts of the ] the Croatian ], as well as in the Bosnia and Herzegovina condominium the Bosnian movement, some of them ultimately forming ], while the Polish and Ukrainian-speaking population of the ] benefitted from the broadening of ]. | |||
]n cities from a Prussian official document published in Berlin in 1750 during the ]<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.sbc.org.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=26222&from=FBC|title=Silesian Digital Library|journal=225240 IV |access-date=23 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120606011210/http://www.sbc.org.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=26222&from=FBC|archive-date=6 June 2012|url-status=live}}</ref>]] | |||
From the high Middle Ages up to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, in the territory of present day Slovenia, German had a strong impact on Slovene, and many Germanisms are preserved in contemporary colloquial Slovene. | |||
During the 18th-century, a more harsh and brutal form of ], initially practiced in ] and ] and extended following the ] also to ] and ] gained from the ] as well as later to the terrories of ] and the ] pawned by Poland, was introduced by ] as a result of the ] to the newly gained Polish territories of ], ], ] and ]. The Prussian authorities settled German-speaking Protestants in these areas. ] settled around 300,000 colonists in the eastern provinces of ]. He aimed at a removal of the Polish nobility, which he viewed with contempt, describing ethnic Poles in newly reconquered West Prussia as "slovenly Polish trash"<ref name="ReferenceB">"In fact, from Hitler to Hans Frank, we find frequent references to Slavs and Jews as 'Indians.' This, too, was a long standing trope. It can be traced back to Frederick the Great, who likened the 'slovenly Polish trash' in newly' reconquered West Prussia to Iroquois". ''Localism, Landscape, and the Ambiguities of Place: German-speaking Central Europe, 1860–1930'' David Blackbourn, James N. Retallack University of Toronto 2007</ref> and compared Poles to the ].<ref>{{cite book|last=Ritter|first=Gerhard|author-link=Gerhard Ritter|title=Frederick the Great: A Historical Profile|year=1974|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=0-520-02775-2|pages=|quote=It has been estimated that during his reign 300,000 individuals settled in Prussia. ... While the commission for colonization established in the Bismarck era could in the course of two decades bring no more than 11,957 families to the eastern territories, Frederick settled a total of 57,475. ... It increased the German character of the population in the monarchy's provinces to a very significant degree. ... in West Prussia where he wished to drive out the Polish nobility and bring as many of their large estates as possible into German hands.|url=https://archive.org/details/stayawayjoenovel00cush/page/179}}</ref> From the start of Prussian rule Poles were subject to a series of measures against their culture: the Polish language was replaced by German as the official language;<ref name="Chwalba">], ''Historia Polski 1795–1918'' Wydawnictwo Literackie 2000 Kraków pages 175–184, 307–312</ref> most administrative positions were filled by Germans. Poles were portrayed as "backward Slavs" by Prussian officials who wanted to spread Protestantism in the German language.<ref name="Chwalba"/> The estates of the ] were confiscated and given to Protestant members of the ].<ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref name="Chwalba"/> | |||
===Polish territories=== | |||
In the ], the policy of having German as an ] led to the forming of German-based pidgins and ], such as ]. | |||
===In the Austrian Empire=== | |||
] (1780–90), a leader influenced by the Enlightenment, sought to centralise control of the empire and to rule it as an enlightened despot.<ref name=Country>{{cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/hutoc.html |title=A Country Study: Hungary – Hungary under the Habsburgs |accessdate= 2009-04-14|work=] |publisher=]}}</ref> He decreed that ] replace ] as the empire's official language.<ref name=Country/> | |||
] perceived Joseph's language reform as German ], and they reacted by insisting on the right to use their own tongue.<ref name=Country/> As a result, Hungarian lesser nobles sparked a renaissance of the ] and culture.<ref name=Country/> The lesser nobles questioned the loyalty of the magnates, of whom less than half were ethnic ], and even those had become ] and German-speaking courtiers.<ref name=Country/> The Magyar national revival subsequently triggered similar movements among the ], ], ], and ] minorities within the ].<ref name=Country/> | |||
===In Prussia=== | |||
]n cities in ] from Prusian official document published in 1750 durning ] in ].<ref></ref>]] | |||
Germanisation in Prussia occurred in several stages: | |||
* ] pursued by ] in territories of ] | |||
* Easing of Germanisation policy in the period 1815–30 | |||
* Intensification of Germanisation and persecution of Poles in the ] by E.Flotwell in 1830–41 | |||
* The process of Germanisation ceases during the period of 1841–49 | |||
* Restarted during years of 1849–70 | |||
* Intensified by ] during his ] against Catholicism and Polish people | |||
* Slight easing of the persecution of Poles during 1890–94 | |||
* Continuation and intensification of activity restarted in 1894 and pursued till the end of ] | |||
Legislation and government policies in the ] sought a degree of linguistic and cultural Germanisation, while in the ] a more intense form of cultural Germanisation was pursued, often with the explicit intention of reducing the influence of other cultures or institutions, such as the Catholic Church. | |||
====Situation in the 18th century==== | |||
{{See also|Germanisation of Poles during Partitions}} | {{See also|Germanisation of Poles during Partitions}} | ||
After the Napoleonic Wars, Austria remained in possession of parts of ], ], ], as well as a ]. Prussia in turn not only retained the bulk of ] but upon dissolution of the ] it also reclaimed the entire ] (formed by ], the northernmost part of ] and a strip of ] on the right bank of ]) and, most importantly, obtained the bulk of ] where an autonomous polity was formed under the name of ] with an officially stated purpose to provide its overwhelmingly Polish population a degree of autonomy; in May 1815 King ] issued a manifest to the Poles in Posen: | |||
When judging Germanisation, one has to decide whether this was seen as an act of ameliorating the economy of the country or the aim of repressing or eliminating the local language and culture.{{Citation needed|date=October 2012}} Settlers from all over Europe were invited to settle ] under the kings ], ], and ]. The settlements were planned either in sparsely populated areas, in areas which had been reclaimed (e. g. after drying up the ] swamp under Frederick the Great), or in areas that had been depopulated by war or plague (e. g. the settlement of the Protestants expelled from the ] in ] 1731/32 under king Frederick William I.).{{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} | |||
<blockquote>You also have a Fatherland. You will be incorporated into my monarchy without having to renounce your nationality. You will receive a constitution like the other provinces of my kingdom. Your religion will be upheld. Your language shall be used like the German language in all public affairs and everyone of you with suitable capabilities shall get the opportunity to get an appointment to a public office. {{citation needed|date=July 2018}}</blockquote> | |||
====Situation in the 19th century==== | |||
After the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia obtained the ] and Austria remained in possession of ]. In May 1815 king ] issued a manifest to the Poles in Posen: | |||
<blockquote>You also have a Fatherland. You will be incorporated into my monarchy without having to renounce your nationality. You will receive a constitution like the other provinces of my kingdom. Your religion will be upheld. Your language shall be used like the German language in all public affairs and everyone of you with suitable capabilities shall get the opportunity to get an appointment to a public office. </blockquote> | |||
The minister for Education Altenstein stated in 1823:<ref>cited in: Richard Cromer: ''Die Sprachenrechte der Polen in Preußen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts.'' Journal Nation und Staat, Vol 6, 1932/33, p. 614, also cited in: ] Zweihundert Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik (Two-hundred years or German Poles politics). Suhrkamp 1972, p. 90, ISBN. 3-518-36574-6. During the discussions in the ] in January 1875, Altenstein's statement was cited by the opponents of Bismarck's politics.</ref> | |||
As a result, there was an easing of Germanisation policy in the period 1815–30. The minister for Education ] stated in 1823:<ref>cited in: Richard Cromer: ''Die Sprachenrechte der Polen in Preußen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts.'' Journal Nation und Staat, Vol 6, 1932/33, p. 614, also cited in: ] Zweihundert Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik (Two-hundred years of German politics towards the Poles). Suhrkamp 1972, p. 90, {{ISBN|3-518-36574-6}}. During the discussions in the ] in January 1875, Altenstein's statement was cited by the opponents of Bismarck's politics.</ref> | |||
<blockquote>Concerning the spread of the German language it is most important to get a clear understanding of the aims, whether it should be the aim to promote the understanding of German among Polish-speaking subjects or whether it should be the aim to gradually and slowly Germanise the Poles. According to the judgement of the minister only the first is necessary, advisable and possible, the second is not advisable and not accomplishable. To be good subjects it is desirable for the Poles to understand the language of government. However, it is not necessary for them to give up or postpone their mother language. The possession of two languages shall not be seen as a disadvantage but as a benefit instead because it is usually associated with a higher flexibility of the mind. Religion and language are the highest sanctuaries of a nation and all attitudes and perceptions are founded on them. A government that is indifferent or even hostile against them creates bitterness, debases the nation and generates disloyal subjects.</blockquote> | <blockquote>Concerning the spread of the German language it is most important to get a clear understanding of the aims, whether it should be the aim to promote the understanding of German among Polish-speaking subjects or whether it should be the aim to gradually and slowly Germanise the Poles. According to the judgement of the minister only the first is necessary, advisable and possible, the second is not advisable and not accomplishable. To be good subjects it is desirable for the Poles to understand the language of government. However, it is not necessary for them to give up or postpone their mother language. The possession of two languages shall not be seen as a disadvantage but as a benefit instead because it is usually associated with a higher flexibility of the mind. Religion and language are the highest sanctuaries of a nation and all attitudes and perceptions are founded on them. A government that is indifferent or even hostile against them creates bitterness, debases the nation and generates disloyal subjects.</blockquote> | ||
Later the first half of the 19th century, Prussian policy towards Poles turned again to discrimination and Germanisation.<ref name="Zdrada">] – ''Historia Polski 1795–1918'' Warsaw, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN 2007; pages 268, 273–291</ref> From 1819 the state gradually reduced the role of the Polish language in schools, with German being introduced in its place. This policy was likely also inspired by English and French examples of using schools for asserting the national language.<ref>{{cite book|title=Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart|volume=3|author=Peter von Polenz|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|year= 2000|pages=111}}</ref> | |||
In the first half of the 19th century, Prussian language policy remained largely tolerant. However, this tolerance gradually changed in the second half of the 19th century after the foundation of the German Emprire in 1871. Successive policies aimed at the elimination of non-German languages from public life and from academic settings, such as schools. Later in the ], Poles were (together with ], ]s, ] and ]s) portrayed as "Reichsfeinde" ("foes to the empire").<ref></ref> In addition, in 1885, the ] financed from the national government's budget was set up to buy land from non-German hands and distribute it among German farmers.<ref>"Die Germanisirung der polnisch-preußischen Landestheile." In "Neueste Mittheilungen, V.Jahrgang, No. 17, 11th February, 1886. Berlin: Dr. H. Klee.http://amtspresse.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/vollanzeige.php?file=11614109%2F1886%2F1886-02-11.xml&s=1</ref> {{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} From 1908 the committee was entitled to force the landowners to sell the land. Other means included the ] from 1885–1890, in which non-Prussian nationals who had lived in Prussia for substantial time periods (mostly Poles and Jews) were removed and a ban was issued on the building of houses by non-Germans (see ]). Germanisation policy in schools also took the form of abuse of Polish children by Prussian officials (see ]). Germanisation unintentionally stimulated resistance, usually in the form of home schooling and tighter unity in the minority groups. | |||
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 ] 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 ] and the ] in 1830–41. | |||
In 1910, ] responded to the increasing persecution of ] by Germans by writing her famous song called ] that instantly became a national symbol for Poles, with its sentence known to many Poles: ''The German will not spit in our face, nor will he Germanise our children''.{{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} Thus, the German efforts to eradicate Polish culture, language, and people met not only with failure, but managed to reinforce the Polish national identity and strengthened efforts of Poles to re-establish a Polish state.<ref>Kossert, Andreas."Grenzlandpolitik und Ostforschung an der Grenze des Reiches: Das ostpreußische Masuren." In "Viertelsjahrheft für Zeitgeschichte." Oldenbourg: Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin, April 2003. Pp. 121–123. http://www.kossert.net/dateien/vfzg5122003.pdf</ref> | |||
] | |||
An international meeting of socialists held in ] in 1902 condemned the Germanisation of Poles in Prussia, calling it "barbarous".<ref>http://www.echoed.com.au/chronicle/1902/jan-feb/world.htm</ref> | |||
After a brief period of thaw in the years 1841–49, ] intensified Germanisation again during 1849–70 as part of his ] against Catholicism in general, but in particular against Polish Catholics. It was the policy of the ] to seek a degree of linguistic and cultural Germanisation, while in ] a more intense form of cultural Germanisation was pursued, often with explicit intention of reducing the influence of other cultures or institutions, such as the Catholic Church.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} In the ], Poles were portrayed as "]" ("foes of the Empire").<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NMiI9NR5VLEC&q=reichsfeinde+Poles&pg=PA24|title=Bismarck and the German Empire 1871–1918|isbn=9780203130957|access-date=23 April 2016|last1=Abrams|first1=Lynn|year=1995|publisher=Taylor & Francis }}</ref> In 1885 the ], financed by the national government, was set up to buy land from non-Germans and distribute it to German farmers.<ref>"Die Germanisirung der polnisch-preußischen Landestheile." In ''Neueste Mittheilungen'', V.Jahrgang, No. 17, 11 February 1886. Berlin: Dr. H. Klee.http://amtspresse.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/vollanzeige.php?file=11614109%2F1886%2F1886-02-11.xml&s=1</ref> {{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} From 1908 the committee was entitled to force the landowners to sell the land. Other means of oppression included the ] from 1885 to 1890, in which non-Prussian nationals who lived in Prussia, mostly Poles and Jews, were removed; and a ban issued on the building of houses by non-Germans. (See ].) Germanisation in schools included the ]. Germanisation stimulated resistance, usually in the form of home schooling and tighter unity in minority groups.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} There was a slight easing of the persecution of Poles during 1890–94. A continuation and intensification of measures restarted in 1894 and continued until the end of ]. In 1910, the Polish poet ] responded to the increasing persecution of Polish people by Germans by writing her famous poem entitled ]; it immediately became a national symbol for Poles, with its sentence known to many Poles: ''The German will not spit in our face, nor will he Germanise our children''.{{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} An international meeting of socialists held in Brussels in 1902 condemned the Germanisation of Poles in Prussia, calling it "barbarous".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.echoed.com.au/chronicle/1902/jan-feb/world.htm |title=All items for this edition of World News are taken from the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), January-February 1902. |access-date=31 October 2005 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051208100913/http://www.echoed.com.au/chronicle/1902/jan-feb/world.htm |archive-date=8 December 2005 }}</ref> | |||
Meanwhile, the Austrian-ruled ] operated two Polish-speaking universities and in 1867 obtained even consent to adopt ] as its official government language. The Galician Government also foolishly launched a ] policy which triggered a Ukrainian ], which was encouraged by the Austrian government, not only to ''divide and rule'', but, more importantly, to create an alternative to the Tsarist-backed ] and to "return the favor" by similarly destabilizing the ]. In defiance of the ], the ], and ], ] was published in Galicia and smuggled across the Russian border with Austrian Government backing. | |||
===Prussian Lithuanians=== | |||
===Lithuania Minor=== | |||
] living in East Prussia experienced similar policies of Germanisation. Although ethnic Lithuanians had constituted a majority in areas of East Prussia during the 15th and 16th centuries (from the early 16th century it was often referred to as ]), the Lithuanian population began to shrink in the 18th century. Plague and subsequent immigration from Germany, notably from ], were the primary factors in this development. Germanisation policies were tightened during the 19th century, but even into the early 20th century the territories north and south/south-west of the ] contained a Lithuanian majority. ] experienced similar developments, but this ethnic group never had a large population. | |||
] experienced similar policies of Germanisation restarting from the 15th century. Although ethnic Lithuanians had constituted a majority in areas of East Prussia during the 15th and 16th centuries{{snd}}from the early 16th century it was often referred to as ]{{snd}}the Lithuanian population shrank in the 18th century. The plague and subsequent immigration from Germany, notably from Salzburg, were the primary factors in this development. Germanisation policies were tightened during the 19th century, but even into the early 20th century the territories north, south and south-west of the ] contained a Lithuanian majority.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Valaitis |display-authors=et al |first1=Lena |title=Germans of Lithuanian Descent: Prussian Lithuanians |date=2010 |publisher=General Books, LLC |page=102}}</ref> | |||
===Polish |
===Polish coal miners in the Ruhr Valley=== | ||
{{main|Ruhrpolen}} | {{main|Ruhrpolen}} | ||
Due to migration within the ] as many as 350,000 ethnic Poles made their way to the ] 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> | |||
In response to these policies, the Polish formed their own organisations to maintain their interests and ethnic identity. The '']'' sports clubs, the workers' union ''Zjednoczenie Zawodowe Polskie'' (ZZP), ''Wiarus Polski'' (press), and ''Bank Robotnikow'' were among the best-known such organisations in the Ruhr. At first, the Polish workers, ostracised by their German counterparts, had supported the Catholic centre party.<ref>]</ref> During the early 20th century, their support shifted increasingly towards the social democrats.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web|url=http://www.deutsche-und-polen.de/_/ereignisse/frames/content_lang_jsp/key=ruhrpolen_1880.html|title=Ereignis: 1880, Polen im Ruhrgebiet – Deutsche und Polen (rbb) Geschichte, Biografien, Zeitzeugen, Orte, Karten|access-date=23 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928120229/http://www.deutsche-und-polen.de/_/ereignisse/frames/content_lang_jsp/key=ruhrpolen_1880.html|archive-date=28 September 2007|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1905 Polish and German workers organised their first common strike.<ref name=autogenerated1 /> Under the ''Namensänderungsgesetz''<ref name=autogenerated1 /> (law of changing surnames), a significant number of "Ruhr-Poles" changed their surnames and Christian names to Germanised forms, in order to evade ethnic discrimination. As the Prussian authorities suppressed Catholic services in Polish by Polish priests during the ], the Poles had to rely on German ] priests. Increasing intermarriage between Germans and Poles contributed much to the Germanisation of ethnic Poles in the Ruhr area.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} | |||
===Polish response=== | |||
In response to these policies, the Polish formed their own organisations to maintain their interests and ethnic identity. The ] sports clubs and the workers' union Zjednoczenie Zawodowe Polskie (ZZP), Wiarus Polski (press), and Bank Robotnikow were among the best-known such organisations near the Ruhr. At first the Polish workers, ostracised by their German counterparts, had supported the Catholic centre party.<ref>http://de.wikipedia.org/Zentrumspartei</ref> Since the beginning of the 20th century their support more and more shifted towards the social democrats.<ref name=autogenerated1></ref> In 1905, Polish and German workers organised their first common strike.<ref name=autogenerated1 /> Under the ''Namensänderungsgesetz''<ref name=autogenerated1 /> (law of changing surnames), a significant number of "Ruhr-Poles" change their surnames and Christian names to "Germanised" forms, in order to evade ethnic discrimination. As the Prussian authorities during the ] suppressed Catholic services in Polish language by Polish priests, the Poles had to rely on German ] priests. Increasing intermarriage between Germans and Poles contributed much to the Germanisation of ethnic Poles in the Ruhr area. | |||
===Other minorities=== | |||
During the ], Poles first were recognised as minority only in Upper Silesia. The peace treaties after the First World War did contain an obligation for Poland to protect its national minorities (Germans, Ukrainians and other), whereas no such clause was introduced by the victors in the ] with Germany. In 1928, the "Minderheitenschulgesetz" (minorities school act) regulated education of minority children in their native tongue.<ref></ref> From 1930 on Poland and Germany agreed to treat their minorities fairly.<ref></ref> | |||
Successive policies aimed at the elimination of non-German languages from public life and from academic settings, such as schools. For example, in the course of the second half of the 19th century, the ], historically spoken in what is now ], ] and ], was banned from schools and the administration and ceased to be spoken in its standardised form by the turn of the century.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Later in the ], in parallel with Poles, ], ], ], ] and ], were portrayed as "Reichsfeinde" ("foes of the Empire").<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NMiI9NR5VLEC&q=reichsfeinde+Poles&pg=PA24|title=Bismarck and the German Empire 1871–1918|isbn=9780203130957|access-date=23 April 2016|last1=Abrams|first1=Lynn|year=1995|publisher=Taylor & Francis }}</ref> | |||
==Contemporary Germanization== | |||
==Germanisation under the Third Reich== | |||
===Interwar period=== | |||
{{Further|Gleichschaltung|Generalplan Ost|Umvolkung}} | |||
During the ], Poles were recognised as a minority in Upper Silesia. The peace treaties after the First World War contained an obligation for Poland to protect its national minorities (Germans, Ukrainians and other), whereas no such clause was introduced by the victors in the ] for Germany. In 1928 the ''Minderheitenschulgesetz'' (minorities school act) regulated the education of minority children in their native tongue.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=352|title="Polen im Ruhrgebiet 1870 – 1945" – Deutsch-polnische Tagung – H-Soz-Kult|access-date=23 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029065112/http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=352|archive-date=29 October 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> From 1930 onwards Poland and Germany agreed to treat their minorities fairly. Such position was officially maintained by Germany even for some time after the Nazi takeover, but ceased towards the end of 1937.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tcm-kp.de/geschichtliches/johannziesch/|title=njedźelu, 24.04.2016|access-date=23 April 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090904184121/http://www.tcm-kp.de/geschichtliches/johannziesch/|archive-date=4 September 2009}}</ref> | |||
The ] advocated an explicitly ] and ] concept of Germanization.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lemkin |first=Raphael |title=Axis rule in occupied Europe |publisher=Lawbook Exchange |location=Clark, New Jersey, USA |date=2008 |isbn=978-1-58477-901-8|pages=80, 81, 82| chapter= IX: Genocide}}</ref> Adolf Hitler wrote in "'']''": {{blockquote|"Even in ] circles the opinion could then be heard that the Austrian-Germans, with the promotion and aid of the ], might well succeed in a ''Germanization'' of the Austrian Slavs; these circles never even began to realize that ''Germanization'' can only be applied to ''soil'' and never to ''people''. ... Not only in ], but in ] as well, so-called national circles were moved by similar false ideas. The Polish policy, demanded by so many, involving a Germanization of the East, was unfortunately based on the same false inference. Here again it was thought that a Germanization of the ] element could be brought about by a purely linguistic integration with the German element. Here again the result would have been catastrophic; a people of alien race expressing its alien ideas in the ], compromising the lofty dignity of our own nationality by their own inferiority."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hitler |first=Adolf |title=Mein Kampf |publisher=Mariner Books |year=1999 |isbn=0-395-95105-4 |edition=First Mariner Books |volume=Two: The National Socialist Movement |publication-place=Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003, USA |pages=388, 390 |translator-last=Manheim |translator-first=Ralph |chapter=II: The State}}</ref>|author=]|title="'']''"|source=Volume Two: The National Socialist Movement, Chapter II: The State, pp. 388, 390}} | |||
===World War II=== | |||
During the ], the lives of certain minorities in Germany were threatened. Germanisation by Nazi Germany was referred to as "''']'''". | |||
{{further| Germanisation in Poland (1939–1945)}} | |||
===Eastern Germanisation=== | |||
====Plans==== | ====Plans==== | ||
{{Further|Gleichschaltung|Generalplan Ost|Umvolkung}} | |||
] 1940 — three names of ] street.]] | |||
The Nazis considered land to the east{{snd}}], ], ], ], and the ]{{snd}} to be '']'' (living space) and sought to populate it with Germans. Hitler, speaking with generals immediately prior to his chancellorship, declared that people could not be Germanised, only the soil could be.<ref>], ''Nazism and War'', p 36 {{ISBN|0-679-64094-0}}</ref> | |||
The East was intended as the ] that the Nazis were seeking, to be filled with Germans. Hitler, speaking with generals immediately prior to his chancellorship, declared that people could not be Germanised; only the soil could be.<ref>Richard Bessel, ''Nazism and War'', p 36 ISBN 0-679-64094-0</ref> | |||
The policy of Germanisation in the Nazi period carried an explicitly ] rather than purely ] meaning, aiming for the spread of a "biologically superior" ] 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"> {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120527021449/http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm |date=27 May 2012 }}</ref> ] declared that no drop of German blood would be lost or left behind for an alien race.<ref name="The Dictators p543">], ''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, ], such the film '']'', depicted these ethnic Germans as |
Inside Germany, ], such the film '']'', depicted these ethnic Germans as persecuted, and the use of military force as necessary to protect them.<ref>], ''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 ].<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' p173 {{ISBN|0-399-11845-4}}</ref> The ] 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> | ||
In a top-secret memorandum, "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East", dated May |
In a top-secret memorandum, "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East", dated 25{{spaces}}May 1940, Himmler wrote "We need to divide Poland's different ethnic groups up into as many parts and splinter groups as possible".<ref>Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 1957, No. 2</ref><ref name="aggression">{{cite web|url=http://fundamentalbass.home.mindspring.com/c9052.htm|title=Chapter XIII – GERMANIZATION AND SPOLIATION|access-date=23 April 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031203151512/http://fundamentalbass.home.mindspring.com/c9052.htm|archive-date=3 December 2003}}</ref> There were two Germanisation actions in ] realised in this way: | ||
* The grouping of Polish ] ("Highlanders") into the hypothetical ], a project which was ultimately abandoned due to lack of support among the Goral population; | * The grouping of Polish ] ("Highlanders") into the hypothetical ], a project which was ultimately abandoned due to lack of support among the Goral population; | ||
* The assignment of |
* The assignment of West Slavic ] of Pomerania and ] of Silesia as '']'', as they were considered capable of assimilation into the German population{{snd}}several high-ranking Nazis deemed them to be descended from ancient ] 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 |
====Selection and expulsion==== | ||
{{see also|Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany}} | {{see also|Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany}} | ||
Germanisation began with the ] |
Germanisation began with the ] as defined on the Nazi ].<ref name="The Dictators p543"/> The Germans regarded the holding of active leadership roles as an Aryan trait, whereas a tendency to avoid leadership and a perceived fatalism was associated by many Germans with Slavonic peoples.<ref name="ChildrenCry">{{Cite web |url=http://www.projectinposterum.org/docs/lucas2.htm |title=Lukas, Richard C. ''Did the Children Cry?'' |access-date=13 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723215035/http://www.projectinposterum.org/docs/lucas2.htm |archive-date=23 July 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Adults who were selected for but resisted Germanisation were executed. Such execution was carried out on the grounds that German blood should not support non-Germanic people,<ref name="aggression"/> and that killing them would deprive foreign nations of superior leaders.<ref name="Gumkowkski"/> The ] was justified, even though these elites were regarded as likely to be of German blood, because such blood enabled them to provide leadership for the fatalistic Slavs.<ref name="ChildrenCry"/> Germanising "racially valuable" elements would prevent any increase in the Polish intelligenstia,<ref name="aggression"/> as the dynamic leadership would have to come from German blood.<ref>Richard C. Lukas, ''Forgotten Holocaust'' p24 {{ISBN|0-7818-0528-7}}</ref> In 1940 Hitler made it clear that the Czech intelligentsia and the "mongoloid" types of the Czech population were not to be Germanised.<ref>Hitler's Ethic By Richard Weikart p.67</ref> | ||
Under '']'', a percentage of Slavs in the conquered territories were to be Germanised. ]s ] and ] reported to Hitler that 10 percent of the Polish population contained "Germanic blood", and were thus suitable for Germanisation.<ref name="speer1">Speer, Albert (1976). '']'', p. 49. Macmillan Company.</ref> The ]s in northern and central Russia reported similar figures.<ref name="speer1"/> Those unfit for Germanisation were to ]. |
Under '']'', a percentage of Slavs in the conquered territories were to be Germanised. ]s ] and ] reported to Hitler that 10 percent of the Polish population contained "Germanic blood", and were thus suitable for Germanisation.<ref name="speer1">Speer, Albert (1976). '']'', p. 49. Macmillan Company.</ref> The ]s in northern and central Russia reported similar figures.<ref name="speer1"/> Those unfit for Germanisation were to ] from the areas marked out for German settlement. In considering the fate of the individual nations, the architects of the Plan decided that it would be possible to Germanise about 50 percent of the ], 35 percent of the ] and 25 percent of the ]. The remainder would be deported to western ] and other regions. In 1941, it was decided that the ] should be completely destroyed in about 10 to 20 years so that it could be re-settled by German colonists.<ref name="Volk">] "Germans and Poles 1871–1945" in "Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences", Rodopi 1999</ref> | ||
]"]] | |||
In the Baltic States, after an agreement with Stalin, who suspected they would be loyal to the Nazis,<ref>], ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p. 204 ISBN 0-679-77663-X</ref> the Nazis set out to encourage the departure of "ethnic Germans" by the use of propaganda. This included using scare tactics about the Soviet Union, and ].<ref>Nicholas, p. 207-9</ref> Those who left were not referred to as "refugees", but were rather described as "answering the call of the Fuhrer."<ref>Nicholas, p. 206</ref> German propaganda films such as '']''<ref>Erwin Leiser, ''Nazi Cinema'' p44-5 ISBN 0-02-570230-0</ref> and '']''<ref>Erwin Leiser, ''Nazi Cinema'' p39-40 ISBN 0-02-570230-0</ref> depicted the ] as deeply persecuted in their native lands. Packed into camps for racial evaluation, they were divided into groups: A, ''Altreich'', who were to be settled in Germany and allowed neither farms nor business (to allow for closer watch), S ''Sonderfall'', who were used as forced labor, and O ''Ost-Falle'', the best classification, to be settled in the Eastern Wall—], to protect German from the East—and allowed independence.<ref>Nicholas, p. 213</ref> This last group was often given Polish homes where the families had been evicted so quickly that half-eaten meals were on tables and small children had clearly been taken from unmade beds.<ref>Nicholas, p. 213-4</ref> Members of ] and the ] were assigned the task of overseeing such evictions to ensure that the Poles left behind most of their belongings for the use of the settlers.<ref name="history">Walter S. Zapotoczny , ""</ref> The deportation orders required that enough Poles be removed to provide for every settler — that, for instance, if twenty German "master bakers" were sent, twenty Polish bakeries had to have their owners removed.<ref>Michael Sontheimer, "" 05/27/2011 ''Spiegel''</ref> | |||
]".]] | |||
====Settlement and Germanisation==== | |||
This colonisation incorporated 350,000 such ] and 1.7 million Poles deemed Germanisable, including between one and two hundred thousand children who had been taken from their parents (plus 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 had great fears of these settlers being tainted by their Polish neighbors and not only warned them to let their "foreign and alien" surroundings to have no impact on their Germanness, but settled them in compact communities, which could be easily monitored by the police.<ref name="lukas20">], ''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> | |||
] after German annexation of ] in 1938]] | |||
For Poles who did not resist and the resettled ethnic Germans, Germanisation began. Militant party members were sent to teach them to be "true Germans".<ref>Pierre Aycoberry, ''The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933–1945'', p 255, ISBN 1-56584-549-8</ref> ] and ] sent young people for "Eastern Service", which entailed (particularly for the girls) assisting in Germanisation efforts.<ref name="cruel215">Nicholas, p. 215</ref> One member of the League recounted afterward that she at first pitied the starving Polish children, but soon realised this was "politically naive" and to concentrate solely on the ]; her beliefs in the stupidity of Poles were reinforced by the lack of educated Poles, not knowing they had been jailed or deported.<ref>Nicholas, p 217</ref> This included instruction in the German language, as many spoke only Polish or Russian.<ref>Nicholas, p. 217</ref> They found the new settlers dispirited and put on various entertainments such as songfests to encourage them and ease their transition.<ref>Nicholas, p. 218</ref> Membership in ] and the ] was enforced for the children.<ref name="history"/> ] and other propagandists worked to establish cultural centers and other means to created ''Volkstum'' or racial consciousness in the settlers.<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' p137 ISBN 399-11845-4</ref> This was needed to perpetuate their work; only by effective Germanisation could mothers, in particular, create the German home.<ref>], ''Mobilizing Women for War'', p 122, ISBN 05109-7</ref> ] also was the official patron of ''Deutsches Ordensland'' or Land of Germanic Order, an organisation to promote Germanisation.<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' p139 ISBN 399-11845-4</ref> This efforts were used in propaganda in Germany itself, as when '']'''s cover article was on "Germany is building in the East."<ref>""</ref> | |||
In the Baltic States the Nazis initially encouraged the departure of ethnic Germans by the use of propaganda. This included using scare tactics about the Soviet Union, and ].<ref>Nicholas, p. 207-9</ref> Those who left were not referred to as "refugees", but were rather described as "answering the call of the Führer".<ref>Nicholas, p. 206</ref> German propaganda films such as '']''<ref>Erwin Leiser, ''Nazi Cinema'' p44-5 {{ISBN|0-02-570230-0}}</ref> and '']''<ref>Erwin Leiser, ''Nazi Cinema'' p39-40 {{ISBN|0-02-570230-0}}</ref> depicted the ] as deeply persecuted in their native lands. Packed into camps for racial evaluation, they were divided into groups: A, ''Altreich'', who were to be settled in Germany and allowed neither farms nor businesses (to allow close supervision); S ''Sonderfall'', who were used as forced labour; and O ''Ost-Fälle'', the best classification, to be settled in ] and allowed independence.<ref>Nicholas, p. 213</ref> This last group was often given Polish homes where the families had been evicted so quickly that half-eaten meals were on tables and small children had clearly been taken from unmade beds.<ref>Nicholas, p. 213-4</ref> Members of the ] and the ] were assigned the task of overseeing such evictions and ensuring that the Poles left behind most of their belongings for the use of the settlers.<ref name="history">Walter S. Zapotoczny, " {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100619203114/http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/hitleryouth.aspx |date=19 June 2010 }}"</ref> The deportation orders required that enough Poles be removed to provide for every settler{{snd}}that, for instance, if twenty German master bakers were sent, twenty Polish bakeries had to have their owners removed.<ref>Michael Sontheimer, " {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120509200250/http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,759095,00.html |date=9 May 2012 }}" 27 May 2011 ''Spiegel''</ref> | |||
Other efforts in Poland were also regarded as Germanisation, as for instance the setting up of the IG-Farben at Auschwitz-Monowitz.<ref>Pierre Aycoberry, ''The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933-1945'', p 265, ISBN 1-56584-549-8</ref> | |||
==== |
====Settlement and Germanisation==== | ||
] after ] in 1938 (in Šumperk/Mährisch Schönberg which had a German-speaking majority then)]] | |||
On 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis Powers. Part of the Slovene-settled territory was occupied by the Nazi Germany. The Gestapo arrived on 16 April 1941 and were followed three days later by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who inspected Stari pisker prison in Celje. On 26 April, Adolf Hitler, who encouraged his followers to "make this land German again", visited Maribor and a grand reception was organized by local Germans in the city castle. Although the Slovenes had been deemed racially salvageable by the Nazis, the mainly Austrian rulers of the Carinthian and Styrian regions commenced a brutal campaign to destroy them as a nation.] on ] in Maribor, Yugoslavia in 1941, now Slovenia]] The Nazis started a policy of violent Germanisation on Slovene territory, attempted to either discourage or entirely suppress the Slovene language. Their main task in Slovenia was the removal of part of population and Germanisation of the rest. Two organizations were instrumental for the Germanization: the Styrian Homeland Union (Steirisches Heimatbund - HS) and the Carinthian People's Union (Kärtner Volksbund - KV). In Styria the action of Germanization of the Slovenes was controlled by SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Steindl. He favoured the theories about the Germanic origins of the Slovenes. In Carinthia similar policy was conducted by Wilhelm Schick, Gauleiter's close associate. Public use of the Slovene language was prohibited, geographic and topographic names were changed and all Slovene associations were dissolved. Members of all professional and intellectual groups, including many clergymen, were expelled as they were seen as obstacle for germanization. As a reaction, a resistance movement developed. The Germans who wanted to proclaim their formal annexation to the ”German Reich“ on October 1, 1941, postponed it first because of the installation of the new ”Gauleiter“ and ”Reichsstatthalter“ of Carinthia and later on they dropped the plan for an undefinite period of time because of Slovene partisans, with which the Germans wanted to deal first. Only Meža valley became part of ”Reichsgau Carinthia“ at once. In the frame of their plan for the ethnic cleansing of Slovene territory, around 80,000 Slovenes were forcibly deported to Eastern Germany for potential Germanization or forced labour, the deported Slovenes were taken to several camps in Saxony, where they were forced to work on German farms or in factories run by German industries from 1941–1945. The forced labourers were not always kept in formal concentration camps, but often just vacant buildings where they slept until the next day's labour took them outside these quarters. Nazi Germany also began mass expulsions of Slovenes to Nedić's Serbia and Ustasha Croatia (both Nazi Germany allies), and more than 63,000 Slovenes who refused to make any attempt to have them recognized as the Germans were interned to Nazi concentration camps in Germany. The basis for the recognition of the Slovenes as German nationals was the decision of the Imperial Ministry for Interior from 14 April 1942; it also constituted the basis for drafting the Slovenes for the service in the German armed forces. The numbers of Slovenes forcibly conscripted to the German military and paramilitary formations has been estimated at 150,000 men and women, almost a quarter of them lost their lives on various European battlefields, mostly on the Eastern Front. An unknown number of "stolen children" were taken to Nazi Germany for Germanization. | |||
This colonisation involved 350,000 such ] 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">], ''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> | |||
For Poles who did not resist the resettled ethnic Germans, Germanisation began. Militant party members were sent to teach them to be "true Germans".<ref>Pierre Aycoberry, ''The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933–1945'', p 255, {{ISBN|1-56584-549-8}}</ref> The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls sent young people for "Eastern Service", which entailed assisting in Germanisation efforts.<ref name="cruel215">Nicholas, p. 215</ref> Germanisation included instruction in the German language, as many spoke only Polish or Russian.<ref>Nicholas, p. 217</ref> ] and other propagandists worked to establish cultural centres and other means to create ''Volkstum'' or racial consciousness in the settlers.<ref>Robert Edwin Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' p137 {{ISBN|0-399-11845-4}}</ref> This was needed to perpetuate their work; only by effective Germanisation could mothers, in particular, create the German home.<ref>], ''Mobilising Women for War'', p 122, {{ISBN|0-691-04649-2}}, {{OCLC|3379930}}</ref> Goebbels was also the official patron of ''Deutsches Ordensland'' or Land of Germanic Order, an organisation to promote Germanisation.<ref>Robert Edwiwas n Hertzstein, ''The War That Hitler Won'' p139 {{ISBN|0-399-11845-4}}</ref> These efforts were used in propaganda in Germany, as when '']''{{'}}s cover article was on "Germany is building in the East".<ref>" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110608123404/http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/fw.htm |date=8 June 2011 }}"</ref> | |||
Later, Ukraine was also targeted for Germanisation. Thirty special SS squads took over villages where ethnic Germans predominated, and expelled or shot any Jews or Slavs living in them, in a policy of concentration.<ref>], ''Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule'' p44 ISBN 0-674-01313-1</ref> The colony ] was set up in the Ukraine as well.<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p336, ISBN 0-679-77663-X</ref> Ukrainians were forcibly deported, and ethnic Germans forcibly relocated there.<ref name="harvest45">], ''Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule'' p45 ISBN 0-674-01313-1</ref> Racial assignment was carried out in a confused manner; the Reich rule was three German grandparents, but some asserted that any person who acted like a German and evinced no "racial concerns" should be eligible.<ref>], ''Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule'' p211 ISBN 0-674-01313-1</ref> | |||
====Yugoslavia==== | |||
Plans to eliminate Slavs from Soviet territory to allow German settlement included starvation; Nazi leaders expected that ].<ref name="harvest45"/> This was regarded as an actual advantage by Nazi officials.<ref name="cecil199">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 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> Experiments in mass sterilisation in concentration camps may also have been intended for use on the Slavonic populations.<ref>], ''Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders'' p 24 ISBN 0-521-85254-4</ref> | |||
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 ]. On 26{{spaces}}April, ], who encouraged his followers to "make this land German again", visited ]. 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. | |||
] on ] in Maribor, Yugoslavia in 1941, now Slovenia]] | |||
====Eastern Workers==== | |||
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}} | |||
In Styria the Germanisation of Slovenes was controlled by SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Steindl. In Carinthia a similar policy was conducted by Wilhelm Schick, the gauleiter's close associate. Public use of Slovene was prohibited, geographic and topographic names were changed and all Slovene associations were dissolved. Members of all professional and intellectual groups, including many clergymen, were expelled as they were seen as obstacles to Germanisation. As a reaction, a resistance movement developed. The Germans who wanted to proclaim their formal annexation to the "German Reich" on 1{{spaces}}October 1941, postponed it first because of the installation of the new gauleiter and ''reichsstatthalter'' of Carinthia and later they dropped the plan for an indefinite period because of Slovene partisans. Only the Meža Valley became part of Reichsgau Carinthia. Around 80,000 Slovenes were forcibly deported to Eastern Germany for potential Germanisation or forced labour. The deported Slovenes were taken to several camps in Saxony, where they were forced to work on German farms or in factories run by German industries from 1941 to 1945. The forced labourers were not always kept in formal concentration camps, but often vacant buildings.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} | |||
When young women from the East were recruited to ], they were required to be suitable for Germanisation, both because they would work with German children, and because they might be ].<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p255, ISBN 0-679-77663-X</ref> The program was praised for not only allowing more women to have children with their new domestic servants to assist in their labours, but for reclaiming the German blood and giving advantages to the women, who would work in Germany, and might marry there.<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p256, ISBN 0-679-77663-X</ref> | |||
Nazi Germany also began mass expulsions of Slovenes to Serbia and Croatia. The basis for the recognition of Slovenes as German nationals was the decision of the Imperial Ministry for the Interior from 14{{spaces}}April 1942. This was the basis for drafting Slovenes for the service in the German armed forces. The number of Slovenes conscripted to the German military and paramilitary formations has been estimated at 150,000 men and women. Almost a quarter of them lost their lives, mostly on the Eastern Front. An unknown number of "stolen children" were taken to Nazi Germany for Germanisation.<ref name="cruel479">Nicholas, p 479</ref> | |||
====Children==== | |||
{{Main|Kidnapping of Eastern European children by Nazi Germany}} | |||
] inside ] map signed with number 15; where Polish children were selected.]] | |||
"Racially acceptable" children were taken from their families in order to be brought up as Germans.<ref></ref> | |||
====USSR==== | |||
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 ]; ] summoned up 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. . Museum of Tolerance, ''Multimedia Learning Center Online''. Annual 5, Chapter 2. Copyright © 1997, The ].</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"/> | |||
Ukraine was targeted for Germanisation. Thirty special SS squads took over villages where ethnic Germans predominated and expelled or shot Jews or Slavs living in them.<ref>], ''Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule'' p44 {{ISBN|0-674-01313-1}}</ref> The ] was set up in Ukraine.<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p336, {{ISBN|0-679-77663-X}}</ref> Ukrainians were forcibly deported, and ethnic Germans forcibly relocated there.<ref name="harvest45">], ''Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule'' p45 {{ISBN|0-674-01313-1}}</ref> Racial assignment was carried out in a confused manner: the Reich rule was three German grandparents, but some asserted that any person who acted like a German and evinced no "racial concerns" should be eligible.<ref>], ''Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule'' p211 {{ISBN|0-674-01313-1}}</ref> | |||
Plans to eliminate Slavs from Soviet territory to allow German settlement included starvation. Nazi leaders expected that millions would die after they ].<ref name="harvest45"/> This was regarded as advantageous by Nazi officials.<ref name="cecil199">], ''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> | |||
In German-occupied Poland, it is estimated that a number ranging from 50,000 to 200,000 children were removed from their families to be Germanised.<ref></ref> The ] was founded specifically to hold such children. It is estimated that at least 10,000 of them were murdered in the process as they were determined unfit and sent to concentration camps and faced brutal treatment or perished in the harsh conditions during their transport in cattle wagons, and only 10-15% returned to their families after the war.<ref></ref> Obligatory ] membership made dialogue between old and young next to impossible, as use of languages other than German was discouraged by officials. Members of minority organisations were either sent to ] by German authorities or executed. | |||
===Eastern workers=== | |||
Many children, particularly Polish and Slovenian who were among the first taken, declared on being found by Allied forces that they were German.<ref name="cruel479">Nicholas, p 479</ref> Russian and Ukrainian children, while not gotten to this stage, still had been taught to hate their native countries and did not want to return.<ref name="cruel479"/> | |||
When young women from the East were recruited to ], they were required to be suitable for Germanisation, both because they would work with German children, and because they might be ].<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p255, {{ISBN|0-679-77663-X}}</ref> The programme was praised for not only allowing more women to have children as their new domestic servants were able to assist them, but for reclaiming German blood and giving opportunities to the women, who would work in Germany, and might marry there.<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p256, {{ISBN|0-679-77663-X}}</ref> | |||
===Western Germanisation=== | |||
In contemporary German usage the process of Germanisation was referred to as ''Germanisierung'' (Germanicisation, i.e. to make something German'''ic''') rather than ''Eindeutschung'' (Germanisation, i.e. to make something German). According to Nazi racial theories, the Germanic peoples of Europe such as the ]ns, the ], and the ], were like the Germans themselves a part of the ] ], regardless of these peoples' own acknowledgement of their "Aryan" identity. | |||
===Kidnapping of Eastern European children=== | |||
Germanisation in these conquered countries proceeded more slowly. The Nazis had a need for local cooperation and the local industry with its workers; furthermore, the countries were regarded as more racially acceptable, ] being boiled down by the average German to mean "East is bad and West is acceptable."<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas, p. 263</ref> The plan was to win the Germanic elements over slowly, through education.<ref name="cruel273">Nicholas, p. 273</ref> Himmler, after a secret tour of Belgium and Holland, happily declared the people would be a racial benefit to Germany.<ref name="cruel273"/> Occupying troops were kept under strict discipline and instructed to be friendly to win the population over, a technique that did not work not only because of their having conquered the countries, but because it was soon clear that being German was far superior to being merely Nordic.<ref name="cruel274">Nicholas, p. 274 ISBN 0-679-77663-X</ref> Pamphlets, for instance, enjoined all German women to avoid sexual intercourse with all foreign workers brought to Germany as ].<ref>Leila J. Rupp, ''Mobilizing Women for War'', p 124–5, ISBN 05109-7</ref> | |||
{{Main|Kidnapping of Eastern European children by Nazi Germany}} | |||
Various Germanisation plans were implemented. Dutch and Belgian Flemish ] were ], to increase Germanic population, while Belgian French ones were kept as laborers.<ref name="cruel274"/> ] homes were set up in Norway for Norwegian women impregnated by German soldiers, with adoption by Norwegian parents being forbidden for any child born there.<ref>Nicholas, p. 275-6</ref> ] was annexed; thousands of residents, too loyal to France, Jewish, or North Africa, were deported to Vichy France; French was forbidden in schools; intransigent German speakers were shipped back to Germany for re-Germanisation, just as Poles were.<ref>Nicholas, p. 277</ref> Extensive racial classification was practiced in France, for future uses.<ref>Nicholas, p. 278</ref> | |||
] inside ] map signed with number 15; where Polish children were selected]] | |||
"Racially acceptable" children were taken from their families in order to be brought up as Germans.<ref>{{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 ]. ] 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. {{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 ].</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"/> | |||
In German-occupied Poland, it is estimated that 50,000 to 200,000 children were removed from their families to be Germanised.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120527021449/http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm |date=27 May 2012 }}</ref> The ] was founded specifically to hold such children. It is estimated that at least 10,000 of them were murdered in the process as they were determined unfit and sent to concentration camps. Only 10–15% returned to their families after the war.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://roztocze.net/newsroom.php/13293|title=Dzieciństwo zabrała wojna > Newsroom – Roztocze Online – informacje regionalne – Zamość, Biłgoraj, Hrubieszów, Lubaczów, Tomaszów Lubelski, Lubaczów – Roztocze OnLine|access-date=23 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423235217/http://roztocze.net/newsroom.php/13293|archive-date=23 April 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
Himmler's original plan for the colony of ] was to recruit settlers from Scandanvia and the Netherlands; this was unsuccessful.<ref>], ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p330-1, ISBN 0-679-77663-X</ref> | |||
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"/> | |||
Himmler's masseuse, ], claimed an even more radical scheme was devised by Himmler which envisioned the near-future resettlement of the entire Dutch nation to agricultural lands in the ] and ] valleys of ] in order to facilitate their immediate Germanisation.<ref>Waller, John H. (2002). ''The devil's doctor: Felix Kersten and the secret plot to turn Himmler against Hitler''. Wiley, p. 20 </ref> 8.5 million people were to be relocated in total, after which all Dutch capital and real estate would be confiscated by the Reich and distributed to reliable SS men, and an ''SS Province of Holland'' declared in vacated Dutch territory. However this claim was shown to be a myth by ] in his book Two Legends of the Third Reich.<ref>Louis de Jong, 1972, reprinted in German translation: H-H. Wilhelm and L. de Jong. Zwei Legenden aus dem dritten Reich : quellenkritische Studien, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1974, pp 79–142.</ref> | |||
===Western Germanisation=== | |||
==After World War II== | |||
In contemporary German usage the process of Germanisation was referred to as ''Germanisierung'' (Germanicisation, i.e., to make something German-ic) rather than ''Eindeutschung'' (Germanisation, i.e., to make something German). According to Nazi racial theories, the Germanic peoples of Europe such as the ]ns, the ], and the ], were a part of the ] ], regardless of these peoples' own acknowledgement of their "Aryan" identity.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} | |||
In post-1945 Germany and post-1945 Austria, the concept of Germanisation is no longer considered relevant. ], ], and Slavic ] are classified as traditional ethnic minorities and are guaranteed ] by both the federal and state governments. Concerning the Danes, there is a treaty between ] and Germany from 1955 regulating the status of the German minority in Denmark and vice versa. Concerning the ], the northern federal-state of ] passed a special law aimed at preserving the language.<ref>http://de.wikisource.org/Friesisch-Gesetz</ref> The cultural autonomy of the Sorbs is a matter of the constitutions of both ] and ]. Nevertheless, almost all of the Sorbs are bilingual and the ] language is regarded as endangered, as the number of native speakers is dwindling, even though there are programmes funded by the state to sustain the language. | |||
Germanisation in these conquered countries proceeded more slowly. The Nazis had a need for local cooperation and the countries were regarded as more racially acceptable. ] for the average German meant "East is bad and West is acceptable".<ref>Lynn H. Nicholas, p. 263</ref> The plan was to win the Germanic elements over slowly, through education.<ref name="cruel273">Nicholas, p. 273</ref> Himmler, after a secret tour of Belgium and Holland, happily declared the people would be a racial benefit for Germany.<ref name="cruel273"/> Occupying troops were kept under discipline and instructed to be friendly in order to win the population over. However, evident contradictions limited the policies' success.<ref name="cruel274">Nicholas, p. 274 {{ISBN|0-679-77663-X}}</ref> Pamphlets, for instance, enjoined all German women to avoid sexual relations with all foreign workers brought to Germany as ].<ref>Leila J. Rupp, ''Mobilising Women for War'', p 124–5, {{ISBN|0-691-04649-2}}, {{OCLC|3379930}}</ref> | |||
In post-1945 Austria, in the federal-state of ], ] and ] have regional protection by law. In ], ]-speaking Austrians are also protected by the law. | |||
Various Germanisation plans were implemented. Dutch and Belgian ] ] were ], to increase the Germanic population, while Belgian ] ones were kept as labourers.<ref name="cruel274"/> Lebensborn homes were set up in Norway for Norwegian women impregnated by German soldiers, with adoption by Norwegian parents being forbidden for any child born there.<ref>Nicholas, p. 275-6</ref> ] was annexed; thousands of residents, those loyal to France as well as Jews and North Africans, were deported to Vichy France. French was forbidden in schools; intransigent French speakers were deported to Germany for re-Germanisation, just as Poles were.<ref>Nicholas, p. 277</ref> Extensive racial classification was practised in France.<ref>Nicholas, p. 278</ref> | |||
Descendants of Polish migrant workers and miners have intermarried with the local population and are culturally German or of mixed culture. It is different with modern and present-day immigration from Poland to Germany after the fall of the ]. These immigrants usually are Polish citizens and live as foreigners in Germany. For many immigrant Poles, Polish ethnicity is not the prime category through which they wish to characterise themselves or want to be evaluated by others,<ref></ref> as it could impact their lives in a negative way. | |||
==Legacy== | |||
==Linguistic Germanisation== | |||
The increasing cultural oppression in ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ] 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 ] by ] (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}} | |||
In linguistics, Germanisation usually means the ] in spelling of loanwords to the rules of the German language — for example the change from the imported word ''bureau'' to ''Büro''. {{split-section|date=October 2012}} | |||
In the ], the policy of imposing German as the ] led to the development of German-based ]s and ], such as ].{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} Of all the last Kaiser's former colonies, however, only ] still has a large German-speaking population. | |||
==Surname and Genetic Evidence of Historic Germanisation of Slavs== | |||
The majority of ] affected by the medieval ] ceased being part of German-speaking Europe as a result of loss of the ] in accordance with the ], with the ensuing re-], or in the case of East Prussia, re-]nisation, ] and ] of these regions, while the Austrian Germanisation of the ] was reversed by the ]. Although German irredentism was fuelled for some time after the war by the ], ultimately the concept of Germanisation became irrelevant in Germany and Austria upon introduction of '']'' in the 1970s. Some German-speaking minorities continue though to exist in Europe, such as in the Polish ] or in ] and are being supported by the German Federal Government. | |||
Immel, Uta-Dorothee ''et al.'' (2006) found a profound stratification observed among East-German male lineages and their correlation with surnames. The best documented wave of migration was that of Eastern ] and ], driven by the ], that led to the downfall of the ]. In historic times, two major instances of assimilation of ] into the German nation occurred. Around 950 AD, the Eastern Franks(]) started to put pressure upon the Slavic peoples inhabiting large areas of what was to become, in the mid of the 20th Century, the German Democratic Republic. By 1100 AD, after more than 100 years of wars and proselytisation, the complete area of contemporary Germany had come under the influence of the German Empire. During the following centuries, most of the non-Germanic tribes (like the ]) completely abandoned their language, and their descendants are today regarded as 'typically German'. Only in a small area, southeast of Berlin, known as the ], the Slavic-speaking ] people maintained their language and culture, and their descendants today represent the only recognised, non-immigrant minority in East Germany. This is mentioned in more details in the sections above. In any case, the names of many cities, including ] (meaning 'little swamp'), and some surnames, most notably those of 'typically ]' nature like 'von Clausewitz' or 'Virchow', still reflect the Slavic roots of this part of Germany. The second major assimilation of people with Slavic ancestry occurred during the ] in the 19th Century. Thousands of people from ] migrated to the West to work in the surging industrial areas of Germany (], Ruhr-Area). Although they brought their surnames with them, they nevertheless became culturally amalgamated quite rapidly by the German majority.<ref name="dirkschweitzer.net">Immel, Uta-Dorothee et al. . ''European Journal of Human Genetics''. pg. 1-6, Copyright © 2006, The ].</ref> | |||
In contrast, today's ], has classified the ], ], and Slavic ] as traditional ethnic and linguistic minorities which are guaranteed ] by both the federal and state governments. There is a treaty between ] and Germany from 1955 regulating the ] of the German-speaking minority in Denmark and vice versa. The north German state of ] has also passed a law aimed at ] the ].<ref>] at ]</ref> | |||
The Halle region is located exactly at the intersection of the Germanic and Slavic spheres of influence of the 10th century, but it is also a traditional mining and chemical industry area (Halle-Leipzig-Bitterfeld) that has attracted Slavic workers during the Industrial Revolution. Both of these factors should have had an impact upon the male-specific genetic structure of the local population where surnames of Germanic and Slavic origin are about equally frequent. In terms of the relative importance of the two historic instances for the observed correlation between Y-STR ] and surname characteristics, it is interesting to note that surnames first occurred in Europe in Venice during the 9th Century. From there, the law of name bearing was adopted in ] and ] in the 11th, and in England, and Western and Southern Germany in the 12th Century. In the North and East of Germany, the custom was practised no earlier than the 15th Century and, in some rural regions, surnames became fashionable only in the 18th century, nearly 900 years after their first appearance in Europe. Furthermore, surnames frequently changed or became modified until the beginning of the 19th century. Therefore, it appears unlikely that the correlation between surnames and Y-STR haplotypes observed in our study dates back to the Middle Ages, but is more likely to be the result of the immigration of industrial workers in the 19th Century instead. In this respect, Central Europe appears to differ from ] and ] where patrilineally inherited names are presumed to have a much deeper rooting.<ref name="dirkschweitzer.net"/> | |||
"The Halle samples were divided into three subgroups, according to surname. Two larger groups comprised 195 males with surnames that were definitely German ('G') and 185 males with definitely Slavic surnames ('S'). The third group contained 39 males with mixed German-Slavic surnames ('M'). Samples of 29 Sorbs and some 1313 published ] from ] males 13 were used for comparison. Surname groups were defined on the basis of spelling, using certain combinations of consonants and surname suffixes to categorise the origin of the name in question. Suffixes '-er', '-mann' and '-burg', for example, are typically German whereas '-ke', '-ka', '-ow' and '-ski' are typically Slavic. In addition, the root morphemes of surnames were also examined. Examples for a Slavic root comprise 'Lessing', which sounds German but was derived from the Slavic expression for "forest settler", and "Kafka", which in ] means "jackdaw". Mixed surnames include both German and Slavic elements, that is, a German basis and a Slavic ending, or vice versa (''Wudtke'' or ''Kuppke''). These surnames are the result of a long parallel usage of both German and Slavic languages in the eastern part of Germany."<ref name="dirkschweitzer.net"/> | |||
A similar characterisation of the present samples in terms of the relative proportion of the fringe haplotypes resulted in highly significant differences between the two surname-defined German subgroups, G+M and S (chi2=13.094, 2 df, P=0.001). While 88 of the 234 haplotypes (38%) in the combined G+M group were classified as 'Western', this was the case for only 42 of the 185 haplotypes (23%) in group S. In contrast, 80 G+M haplotypes (34%) were of 'Eastern' type compared to 91 S haplotypes (49%). The portion of unclassifiable haplotypes was 28% in both groups (66 in G+M, 52 in S).<ref name="dirkschweitzer.net"/> | |||
Professor ], of the University of Leipzig Institute for Slavic Studies, contends that 15 million people in modern ] have Slavic or specifically Polish surnames.<ref>Stumpf, Rainer. . ''Magazin Deutschland Online'', 2009.</ref> He believes the concentration of Slavic names in East Germany is even higher than the national average, accounting for 30% of all surnames in the region.<ref>Unknown. . ''Der NDR'', 2011.</ref><ref>Unknown. . ''Frantfurter Allemeine Online'', 2011.</ref> | |||
==See also== | ==See also== | ||
* {{annotated link|Anti-Slavic sentiment}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 19:27, 9 January 2025
Spread of the German language, people and cultureNot to be confused with Germination.
Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and 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.
Under the policies of states such as the Teutonic Order, Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the German Empire, non-German minorities were often discouraged or even prohibited from using their native language, and had their traditions and culture suppressed in the name of linguistic imperialism. In addition, the Government also encouraged immigration from the Germanosphere to further upset the linguistic balance, but with varying degrees of success. In Nazi Germany, linguistic Germanisation was replaced by a policy of genocide against certain ethnic groups like Poles, Baltic natives, and Czechoslovaks, even when they were already German-speaking.
Forms
Historically there are different forms and degrees of the expansion of the German language and of elements of German culture. There are examples of complete assimilation into German culture, as happened with the pagan Slavs in the Diocese of Bamberg (Franconia) in the 11th century. An example of the eclectic adoption of German culture is the field of law in Imperial and present-day Japan, which is organised according to the model of the German Empire. Germanisation took place by cultural contact, by political decision of the adopting party, or by force.
In Slavic countries, the term Germanisation is often understood to mean the process of acculturation of Slavic- and Baltic-language speakers – after conquest by or cultural contact with Germans in the early Middle Ages; especially the areas of modern southern Austria and extant part of German East Elbia. In East Prussia, decimation and forced resettlement of the original Baltic Old Prussians by the Teutonic Order as well as acculturation by immigrants from various European countries, primarily Germans, but also Poles (Catholic Warmians and Protestant Masurians who both descended from Masovians, as well as Catholic Powiślans who descended from Chełminians and Kociewians), Lithuanians (Prussian Lithuanians) and Bohemians, contributed to the eventual extinction of the Prussian language in the 17th century. Germanisation in its modern form was conducted from the beginning of the 19th century as a set of Prussian/German and (to a lesser degree and for a shorter time) Austrian state policies of forceful imposition of German culture, language and people upon non-German people, Slavs in particular.
Since the flight and expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe at the end of and after World War II, however, these territories have been mostly degermanised.
Early history
See also: Germanisation of Gaul, Ostsiedlung, Germania Slavica, Wendish Crusade, and Northern CrusadesEarly Germanisation went along with the Ostsiedlung during the Middle Ages in 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.
Since the Late Middle Ages, the Silesian Piasts and Pomeranian Griffins invited German settlers to settle in many areas constituting the Kingdom of Poland prior to its fragmentation while the Santok Castellany was outright sold to Brandenburg by the Piast dukes of Greater Poland. As a result, Silesia, Pomerania (in the narrow sense) and Lubusz Land joined the Holy Roman Empire, as a natural consequence becoming gradually Germanised in the following centuries. Proto-Slovene was spoken in a much larger territory than modern Slovenia, which included most of the present-day Austrian states of Carinthia and Styria, as well as East Tyrol, the Val Pusteria in South Tyrol, and some parts of Upper and Lower Austria. By the 15th century, most of these areas had been gradually Germanised.
Historians have also noted that Ostsiedlung did not include deliberate Germanization, which in pre-national times was beyond imagination.
Outside of the HRE, the Old Prussians, originally a Baltic ethnic group, were Germanised by the Teutonic Knights who adopted a very different approach. When the State of the Teutonic Order 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 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. 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. Such views did not remain purely ideas but were also put into practice in the wake of events such as the 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. The carnage was so extensive that it prompted the pope Clement V to condemn the Teutonic Knights in a bull which charged them with committing a massacre
"Latest news were brought to my attention, that officials and brethren of the aforementioned 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."
The Teutonic Order did however not deliberately pursue Germanization. Germanization was rather the result of the colonial nature of the State. This is corroborated by the fact that Order's politics also resulted in Polonization in some areas of the Teutonic State, and Lithuanization in other areas. Correspondingly, even in villages under German right, there were Polish farmers and even a Polish Schultheiß is recorded.
Modern Germanisation
Differences in Austrian and Prussian approaches
In respect to Austria, northern border of Slovene-speaking territory stabilised on a line from north of Klagenfurt to the south of Villach and east of Hermagor in Carinthia, while in Styria it closely followed the current Austrian-Slovenian border. This linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when the second process of Germanisation took place, mostly in Carinthia. Germanisation of the Ladino-Romantsch Venosta Valley in Tyrol was also undertaken by Austria in the 16th century. Following the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, at the time one of the last meaningful territories of the HRE not dominated yet by the German language, was subjected to two centuries of recatholicization of the Czech lands accompanied by growing influence of German-speaking elites, at the expense of declining the Czech-speaking aristocracy, elite Czech language usage in general. Despite the great importance to Czech literature of poets and writers of the era like Bedřich Bridel, Czech nationalist historians and writers such as Alois Jirásek have referred to the 17th and 18th century in the Czech lands as the Dark Age. As a further step, Emperor Joseph II (r. 1780–90) sought to consolidate the territories of Habsburg Monarchy within the Holy Roman Empire with those remaining outside of it, to centralise the government, and to implement Enlightenment principles through absolutism. He decreed that Austrian German was to replace Ecclesiastical Latin as the official language of Government. Hungarians, however, perceived Joseph's language reforms as an act of linguistic imperialism and cultural hegemony, and they responded by insisting on using their heritage language. As a result, the lower Hungarian nobility launched a literary renaissance of the Hungarian language and culture. These lesser nobles often questioned the loyalty of the magnates, less than half of whom were ethnic Hungarians, and many of these had become French- and German-speaking courtiers. The Hungarian national revival was so successful that the Government in Budapest did not learn anything from the failure of Emperor Joseph II's linguistic policies and, following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, unwisely launched a coercive Magyarization policy aimed at forcibly assimilating the many speakers of other minority languages within the Kingdom of Hungary, which ultimately triggered a domino effect. Anti-Hungarian and heritage language revival movements arose in Transleithania among Slovaks, Romanians, Serbians, and Croatians within the Kingdom of Hungary, triggering in Cisleithania the Czech National Revival and United Slovenia movements, in both parts of the Habsburg Monarchy the Croatian Illyrian movement, as well as in the Bosnia and Herzegovina condominium the Bosnian movement, some of them ultimately forming Yugoslavism, while the Polish and Ukrainian-speaking population of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria benefitted from the broadening of Galician autonomy.
During the 18th-century, a more harsh and brutal form of Germanisation efforts, initially practiced in Farther Pomerania and East Prussia and extended following the Silesian Wars also to Silesia and County of Kladsko gained from the Lands of the Bohemian Crown as well as later to the terrories of Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the Starostwo of Draheim pawned by Poland, was introduced by Frederick the Great as a result of the partitions of Poland to the newly gained Polish territories of Greater Poland, Pomerelia, Warmia and Malbork Land. The Prussian authorities settled German-speaking Protestants in these areas. Frederick the Great settled around 300,000 colonists in the eastern provinces of Prussia. He aimed at a removal of the Polish nobility, which he viewed with contempt, describing ethnic Poles in newly reconquered West Prussia as "slovenly Polish trash" and compared Poles to the Iroquois. From the start of Prussian rule Poles were subject to a series of measures against their culture: the Polish language was replaced by German as the official language; most administrative positions were filled by Germans. Poles were portrayed as "backward Slavs" by Prussian officials who wanted to spread Protestantism in the German language. The estates of the Polish nobility were confiscated and given to Protestant members of the German nobility.
Polish territories
See also: Germanisation of Poles during PartitionsAfter the Napoleonic Wars, Austria remained in possession of parts of Lesser Poland, Galicia, Volhynia, as well as a minor share of Silesia. Prussia in turn not only retained the bulk of Upper Silesia but upon dissolution of the Duchy of Warsaw it also reclaimed the entire West Prussia (formed by Pomerelia, the northernmost part of Greater Poland and a strip of historical Prussia on the right bank of Vistula) and, most importantly, obtained the bulk of Greater Poland where an autonomous polity was formed under the name of Grand Duchy of Posen with an officially stated purpose to provide its overwhelmingly Polish population a degree of autonomy; in May 1815 King Frederick William III issued a manifest to the Poles in Posen:
You also have a Fatherland. You will be incorporated into my monarchy without having to renounce your nationality. You will receive a constitution like the other provinces of my kingdom. Your religion will be upheld. Your language shall be used like the German language in all public affairs and everyone of you with suitable capabilities shall get the opportunity to get an appointment to a public office.
As a result, there was an easing of Germanisation policy in the period 1815–30. The minister for Education Altenstein stated in 1823:
Concerning the spread of the German language it is most important to get a clear understanding of the aims, whether it should be the aim to promote the understanding of German among Polish-speaking subjects or whether it should be the aim to gradually and slowly Germanise the Poles. According to the judgement of the minister only the first is necessary, advisable and possible, the second is not advisable and not accomplishable. To be good subjects it is desirable for the Poles to understand the language of government. However, it is not necessary for them to give up or postpone their mother language. The possession of two languages shall not be seen as a disadvantage but as a benefit instead because it is usually associated with a higher flexibility of the mind. Religion and language are the highest sanctuaries of a nation and all attitudes and perceptions are founded on them. A government that is indifferent or even hostile against them creates bitterness, debases the nation and generates disloyal subjects.
Later the first half of the 19th century, Prussian policy towards Poles turned again to discrimination and Germanisation. From 1819 the state gradually reduced the role of the Polish language in schools, with German being introduced in its place. This policy was likely also inspired by English and French examples of using schools for asserting the national language.
In 1825 August Jacob, a politician hostile to Poles, gained power over the newly created Provincial Educational Collegium in Poznan. 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. In 1825 the teacher's seminary in Bydgoszcz was Germanised. Successive policies aimed at the elimination of non-German languages from public life and from academic settings, such as schools. 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.
After a brief period of thaw in the years 1841–49, Bismarck intensified Germanisation again during 1849–70 as part of his Kulturkampf against Catholicism in general, but in particular against Polish Catholics. It was the policy of the Kingdom of Prussia to seek a degree of linguistic and cultural Germanisation, while in Imperial Germany a more intense form of cultural Germanisation was pursued, often with explicit intention of reducing the influence of other cultures or institutions, such as the Catholic Church. In the German Empire, Poles were portrayed as "Reichsfeinde" ("foes of the Empire"). In 1885 the Prussian Settlement Commission, financed by the national government, was set up to buy land from non-Germans and distribute it to German farmers. From 1908 the committee was entitled to force the landowners to sell the land. Other means of oppression included the Prussian deportations from 1885 to 1890, in which non-Prussian nationals who lived in Prussia, mostly Poles and Jews, were removed; and a ban issued on the building of houses by non-Germans. (See Drzymała's van.) Germanisation in schools included the abuse of Polish children by Prussian officials. Germanisation stimulated resistance, usually in the form of home schooling and tighter unity in minority groups. There was a slight easing of the persecution of Poles during 1890–94. A continuation and intensification of measures restarted in 1894 and continued until the end of World War I. In 1910, the Polish poet Maria Konopnicka responded to the increasing persecution of Polish people by Germans by writing her famous poem entitled Rota; it immediately became a national symbol for Poles, with its sentence known to many Poles: The German will not spit in our face, nor will he Germanise our children. An international meeting of socialists held in Brussels in 1902 condemned the Germanisation of Poles in Prussia, calling it "barbarous".
Meanwhile, the Austrian-ruled Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria operated two Polish-speaking universities and in 1867 obtained even consent to adopt Polish as its official government language. The Galician Government also foolishly launched a Polonisation policy which triggered a Ukrainian language revival, which was encouraged by the Austrian government, not only to divide and rule, but, more importantly, to create an alternative to the Tsarist-backed Galician Russophiles and to "return the favor" by similarly destabilizing the Russification of Ukraine. In defiance of the Valuev Circular, the Ems Ukaz, and censorship in the Russian Empire, Ukrainian-language literature was published in Galicia and smuggled across the Russian border with Austrian Government backing.
Lithuania Minor
Prussian Lithuanians experienced similar policies of Germanisation restarting from the 15th century. Although ethnic Lithuanians had constituted a majority in areas of East Prussia during the 15th and 16th centuries – from the early 16th century it was often referred to as Lithuania Minor – the Lithuanian population shrank in the 18th century. The plague and subsequent immigration from Germany, notably from Salzburg, were the primary factors in this development. Germanisation policies were tightened during the 19th century, but even into the early 20th century the territories north, south and south-west of the Neman River contained a Lithuanian majority.
Polish coal miners in the Ruhr Valley
Main article: RuhrpolenDue 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" element. All Polish workers had special cards and were under constant observation by German authorities. Their citizens' rights were also limited by the state.
In response to these policies, the Polish formed their own organisations to maintain their interests and ethnic identity. The Sokol sports clubs, the workers' union Zjednoczenie Zawodowe Polskie (ZZP), Wiarus Polski (press), and Bank Robotnikow were among the best-known such organisations in the Ruhr. At first, the Polish workers, ostracised by their German counterparts, had supported the Catholic centre party. During the early 20th century, their support shifted increasingly towards the social democrats. In 1905 Polish and German workers organised their first common strike. Under the Namensänderungsgesetz (law of changing surnames), a significant number of "Ruhr-Poles" changed their surnames and Christian names to Germanised forms, in order to evade ethnic discrimination. As the Prussian authorities suppressed Catholic services in Polish by Polish priests during the Kulturkampf, the Poles had to rely on German Catholic priests. Increasing intermarriage between Germans and Poles contributed much to the Germanisation of ethnic Poles in the Ruhr area.
Other minorities
Successive policies aimed at the elimination of non-German languages from public life and from academic settings, such as schools. For example, in the course of the second half of the 19th century, the Dutch language, historically spoken in what is now Cleves, Geldern and Emmerich, was banned from schools and the administration and ceased to be spoken in its standardised form by the turn of the century. Later in the German Empire, in parallel with Poles, Danes, Dutch, Alsatians, German Catholics and Socialists, were portrayed as "Reichsfeinde" ("foes of the Empire").
Contemporary Germanization
Interwar period
During the Weimar Republic, Poles were recognised as a minority in Upper Silesia. The peace treaties after the First World War contained an obligation for Poland to protect its national minorities (Germans, Ukrainians and other), whereas no such clause was introduced by the victors in the Treaty of Versailles for Germany. In 1928 the Minderheitenschulgesetz (minorities school act) regulated the education of minority children in their native tongue. From 1930 onwards Poland and Germany agreed to treat their minorities fairly. Such position was officially maintained by Germany even for some time after the Nazi takeover, but ceased towards the end of 1937.
The Nazi party advocated an explicitly ethno-racialist and bio-political concept of Germanization. Adolf Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf":
"Even in Pan-German circles the opinion could then be heard that the Austrian-Germans, with the promotion and aid of the government, might well succeed in a Germanization of the Austrian Slavs; these circles never even began to realize that Germanization can only be applied to soil and never to people. ... Not only in Austria, but in Germany as well, so-called national circles were moved by similar false ideas. The Polish policy, demanded by so many, involving a Germanization of the East, was unfortunately based on the same false inference. Here again it was thought that a Germanization of the Polish element could be brought about by a purely linguistic integration with the German element. Here again the result would have been catastrophic; a people of alien race expressing its alien ideas in the German language, compromising the lofty dignity of our own nationality by their own inferiority."
— Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Volume Two: The National Socialist Movement, Chapter II: The State, pp. 388, 390
World War II
Further information: Germanisation in Poland (1939–1945)Plans
Further information: Gleichschaltung, Generalplan Ost, and UmvolkungThe Nazis considered land to the east – Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and the Baltics – to be Lebensraum (living space) and sought to populate it with Germans. Hitler, speaking with generals immediately prior to his chancellorship, declared that people could not be Germanised, only the soil could be.
The policy of Germanisation in the Nazi period carried an explicitly ethno-racial rather than purely 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. Himmler declared that no drop of German blood would be lost or left behind for an alien race. In Nazi documents even the term "German" can be problematic, since it could be used to refer to people classified as "ethnic Germans" who spoke no German.
Inside Germany, propaganda, such the film Heimkehr, depicted these ethnic Germans as persecuted, and the use of military force as necessary to protect them. 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. The bloody Sunday incident during the invasion was widely exploited as depicting the Poles as murderous towards Germans.
In a top-secret memorandum, "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East", dated 25 May 1940, Himmler wrote "We need to divide Poland's different ethnic groups up into as many parts and splinter groups as possible". There were two Germanisation actions in occupied Poland realised in this way:
- 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 – several high-ranking Nazis deemed them to be descended from ancient Gothic peoples.
Selection and expulsion
See also: Expulsion of Poles by Nazi GermanyGermanisation began with the classification of people as defined on the Nazi Volksliste. The Germans regarded the holding of active leadership roles as an Aryan trait, whereas a tendency to avoid leadership and a perceived fatalism was associated by many Germans with Slavonic peoples. Adults who were selected for but resisted Germanisation were executed. Such execution was carried out on the grounds that German blood should not support non-Germanic people, and that killing them would deprive foreign nations of superior leaders. The intelligenzaktion was justified, even though these elites were regarded as likely to be of German blood, because such blood enabled them to provide leadership for the fatalistic Slavs. Germanising "racially valuable" elements would prevent any increase in the Polish intelligenstia, as the dynamic leadership would have to come from German blood. In 1940 Hitler made it clear that the Czech intelligentsia and the "mongoloid" types of the Czech population were not to be Germanised.
Under Generalplan Ost, a percentage of Slavs in the conquered territories were to be Germanised. Gauleiters Albert Forster and Arthur Greiser reported to Hitler that 10 percent of the Polish population contained "Germanic blood", and were thus suitable for Germanisation. The Reichskommissars in northern and central Russia reported similar figures. Those unfit for Germanisation were to be expelled from the areas marked out for German settlement. In considering the fate of the individual nations, the architects of the Plan decided that it would be possible to Germanise about 50 percent of the Czechs, 35 percent of the Ukrainians and 25 percent of the Belarusians. The remainder would be deported to western Siberia and other regions. In 1941, it was decided that the Polish nation should be completely destroyed in about 10 to 20 years so that it could be re-settled by German colonists.
In the Baltic States the Nazis initially encouraged the departure of ethnic Germans by the use of propaganda. This included using scare tactics about the Soviet Union, and led to tens of thousands leaving. Those who left were not referred to as "refugees", but were rather described as "answering the call of the Führer". German propaganda films such as The Red Terror and Frisians in Peril depicted the Baltic Germans as deeply persecuted in their native lands. Packed into camps for racial evaluation, they were divided into groups: A, Altreich, who were to be settled in Germany and allowed neither farms nor businesses (to allow close supervision); S Sonderfall, who were used as forced labour; and O Ost-Fälle, the best classification, to be settled in the occupied regions and allowed independence. This last group was often given Polish homes where the families had been evicted so quickly that half-eaten meals were on tables and small children had clearly been taken from unmade beds. Members of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were assigned the task of overseeing such evictions and ensuring that the Poles left behind most of their belongings for the use of the settlers. The deportation orders required that enough Poles be removed to provide for every settler – that, for instance, if twenty German master bakers were sent, twenty Polish bakeries had to have their owners removed.
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". 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. Only families classified as "highly valuable" were kept together.
For Poles who did not resist the resettled ethnic Germans, Germanisation began. Militant party members were sent to teach them to be "true Germans". The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls sent young people for "Eastern Service", which entailed assisting in Germanisation efforts. Germanisation included instruction in the German language, as many spoke only Polish or Russian. Goebbels and other propagandists worked to establish cultural centres and other means to create Volkstum or racial consciousness in the settlers. This was needed to perpetuate their work; only by effective Germanisation could mothers, in particular, create the German home. Goebbels was also the official patron of Deutsches Ordensland or Land of Germanic Order, an organisation to promote Germanisation. These efforts were used in propaganda in Germany, as when NS-Frauen-Warte's cover article was on "Germany is building in the East".
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 April 1941 and were followed three days later by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who inspected Stari Pisker Prison in Celje. On 26 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).
In Styria the Germanisation of Slovenes was controlled by SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Steindl. In Carinthia a similar policy was conducted by Wilhelm Schick, the gauleiter's close associate. Public use of Slovene was prohibited, geographic and topographic names were changed and all Slovene associations were dissolved. Members of all professional and intellectual groups, including many clergymen, were expelled as they were seen as obstacles to Germanisation. As a reaction, a resistance movement developed. The Germans who wanted to proclaim their formal annexation to the "German Reich" on 1 October 1941, postponed it first because of the installation of the new gauleiter and reichsstatthalter of Carinthia and later they dropped the plan for an indefinite period because of Slovene partisans. Only the Meža Valley became part of Reichsgau Carinthia. Around 80,000 Slovenes were forcibly deported to Eastern Germany for potential Germanisation or forced labour. The deported Slovenes were taken to several camps in Saxony, where they were forced to work on German farms or in factories run by German industries from 1941 to 1945. The forced labourers were not always kept in formal concentration camps, but often vacant buildings.
Nazi Germany also began mass expulsions of Slovenes to Serbia and Croatia. The basis for the recognition of Slovenes as German nationals was the decision of the Imperial Ministry for the Interior from 14 April 1942. This was the basis for drafting Slovenes for the service in the German armed forces. The number of Slovenes conscripted to the German military and paramilitary formations has been estimated at 150,000 men and women. Almost a quarter of them lost their lives, mostly on the Eastern Front. An unknown number of "stolen children" were taken to Nazi Germany for Germanisation.
USSR
Ukraine was targeted for Germanisation. Thirty special SS squads took over villages where ethnic Germans predominated and expelled or shot Jews or Slavs living in them. The Hegewald colony was set up in Ukraine. Ukrainians were forcibly deported, and ethnic Germans forcibly relocated there. Racial assignment was carried out in a confused manner: the Reich rule was three German grandparents, but some asserted that any person who acted like a German and evinced no "racial concerns" should be eligible.
Plans to eliminate Slavs from Soviet territory to allow German settlement included starvation. Nazi leaders expected that millions would die after they removed food supplies. This was regarded as advantageous by Nazi officials. 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.
Eastern workers
When young women from the East were recruited to work as nannies in Germany, they were required to be suitable for Germanisation, both because they would work with German children, and because they might be sexually exploited. The programme was praised for not only allowing more women to have children as their new domestic servants were able to assist them, but for reclaiming German blood and giving opportunities to the women, who would work in Germany, and might marry there.
Kidnapping of Eastern European children
Main article: Kidnapping of Eastern European children by Nazi Germany"Racially acceptable" children were taken from their families in order to be brought up as Germans. Children were selected for "racially valuable traits" before being shipped to Germany. 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 Polonised. Hans Frank exhibited such views when he declared, "When we see a blue-eyed child we are surprised that she is speaking Polish." The term used for them was wiedereindeutschungsfähig—meaning capable of being re-Germanised. These might include the children of people executed for resisting Germanisation. 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.
In German-occupied Poland, it is estimated that 50,000 to 200,000 children were removed from their families to be Germanised. The Kinder KZ was founded specifically to hold such children. It is estimated that at least 10,000 of them were murdered in the process as they were determined unfit and sent to concentration camps. Only 10–15% returned to their families after the war.
Many children, particularly Polish and Slovenian, declared on being found by Allied forces that they were German. Russian and Ukrainian children had been taught to hate their native countries and did not want to return.
Western Germanisation
In contemporary German usage the process of Germanisation was referred to as Germanisierung (Germanicisation, i.e., to make something German-ic) rather than Eindeutschung (Germanisation, i.e., to make something German). According to Nazi racial theories, the Germanic peoples of Europe such as the Scandinavians, the Dutch, and the Flemish, were a part of the Aryan master race, regardless of these peoples' own acknowledgement of their "Aryan" identity.
Germanisation in these conquered countries proceeded more slowly. The Nazis had a need for local cooperation and the countries were regarded as more racially acceptable. Racial categories for the average German meant "East is bad and West is acceptable". The plan was to win the Germanic elements over slowly, through education. Himmler, after a secret tour of Belgium and Holland, happily declared the people would be a racial benefit for Germany. Occupying troops were kept under discipline and instructed to be friendly in order to win the population over. However, evident contradictions limited the policies' success. Pamphlets, for instance, enjoined all German women to avoid sexual relations with all foreign workers brought to Germany as a danger to their blood.
Various Germanisation plans were implemented. Dutch and Belgian Flemish prisoners of war were sent home quickly, to increase the Germanic population, while Belgian Walloon ones were kept as labourers. Lebensborn homes were set up in Norway for Norwegian women impregnated by German soldiers, with adoption by Norwegian parents being forbidden for any child born there. Alsace-Lorraine was annexed; thousands of residents, those loyal to France as well as Jews and North Africans, were deported to Vichy France. French was forbidden in schools; intransigent French speakers were deported to Germany for re-Germanisation, just as Poles were. Extensive racial classification was practised in France.
Legacy
The increasing cultural oppression in Lusatia, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Pomerelia, Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, 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. 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.
In the German colonies, the policy of imposing German as the official language led to the development of German-based pidgins and German-based creole languages, such as Unserdeutsch. Of all the last Kaiser's former colonies, however, only Namibia still has a large German-speaking population.
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-Lithuanianisation, 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.
In contrast, today's Federal Republic of Germany, has classified the Danes, Frisians, and Slavic Sorbs as traditional ethnic and linguistic minorities which are guaranteed cultural autonomy by both the federal and state governments. There is a treaty between Denmark and Germany from 1955 regulating the linguistic rights of the German-speaking minority in Denmark and vice versa. The north German state of Schleswig-Holstein has also passed a law aimed at preserving the Frisian language.
See also
- Anti-Slavic sentiment – Hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Slavic peoples
- Cultural imperialism – Cultural aspects of imperialism
- Drang nach Osten – Motto of the 19th-century German nationalist movement
- German nationalism – Ideological notion
- Germanism – Characteristic feature of German occurring in another language
- Pan-Germanism – Pan-nationalist political idea
References
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Notes
- Straub, Eberhard (2011). Eine kleine Geschichte Preußens. Klett-Cotta. p. 24. "Eine konsequente Germanisierung war nicht angestrebt . Eine bewusste "deutsche Kulturmission" wie im 19. Jahrhundert beschworen wurde, lag in vornationalen Epochen außerhalb des Vorstellungsvermögens"
- Hackmann, Jörg (1996). Ostpreußen und Westpreußen in deutscher und polnischer Sicht - Landeshistorie als beziehungsgeschichtliches Problem. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 231. ISBN 9783447037662.: "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"
- B. Biékowska (2012). The Scientific World of Copernicus: On the Occasion of the 500th Anniversary of his Birth 1473–1973. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 4. ISBN 9789401026161.: "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";: Daran anschließend schilderte er die Besiedlung, Bevölkerung, Religion sowie die Verfassung Preußens, wobei er sowohl Germanisierungs- wie Polonisierungsprozesse registrierte