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The concept of ethnic belonging is always problematic; it can relate to:
The concept of who is an ethnic German has repeatedly changed in history. For example, in contrast to the Swiss Germans and the Dutch , who had already split off and shaped separate national identities, most German-speaking Austria ns used to consider themselves as ethnic Germans until the mid-20th century. The first attempts to create a consciousness of the "Austrian nation" took place during the Napoleonic Wars (at which time "Austrian" identity included non-German-speaking subjects of the Austrian Empire ) and in the early 1930s, but without major effects. After World War II , Austrians increasingly came to see themselves as a Nation distinct from the German nation. A sizeable minority of Austrians (5-10%) still identify themselves as German (''"Deutschnational"''); this view is especially strong in the southern state of Carinthia . DISTRIBUTION Ethnic Germans are an important minority group in many countries. (See Germans , German Language , and German As A Minority Language for more extensive numbers and a better sense of where Germans maintain German culture and have official recognition.) The following sections briefly detail the historical and present distribution of ethnic Germans by region, but generally exclude modern Expatriate s, who have a presence in the United States , Scandinavia and major urban areas worldwide. ''See ''Groups'' at bottom for a list of all ethnic German groups, or continue for a prosaic summary by region.'' North America
Latin America Latin America is home to considerable and fairly well-known German groups, mostly originating from Eastern Europe and Austria, who came either before World War II for religious or economic reasons, or who came as refugees following the war. Some, such as Argentine president Néstor Kirchner and Brazil ian supermodel Gisele Bündchen , are German in name only, but very often ethnic Germans in Latin America have their own fairly independent communities often designed to look like traditional German villages in all their various forms, and prosper by raising wheat or dairy cattle, often without the native manual labor ubiquitous among the very wealthy Latin American elite of European ancestry. The famous actress Vera Fischer also belongs to this group. An exception is the news anchor Monika Waldvogel, who not only speaks Portuguese but also speaks German. Volga Germans and ( Plautdietsch -speaking) Mennonites are some of the more prominent such groups. Notable communities are in:
Western Europe and the Alpine nations In Italy there are two main groups. The 225,000 ethnic Germans of South Tyrol , formerly (before the 1919 annexation) part of Austrian Tyrol , now constitute a growing majority in this autonomous region of Italy. Naturally, their dialects are basically extensions of Austrian German. There also exist some unique populations of Germans, the Cimbrians , the Mócheno s and some groups of Walser , who arrived so long ago that their dialect retains many archaic features heard nowhere else. The Cimbrians, though celebrated since their discovery, are relatively few in number and concentrated in various communities in the Carnic Alps , north of Verona , and especially in the Sugana Valley (''Valsugana'' or ''Suganertal'') on the high plateau northwest of Vicenza in the Veneto Region. The Italian Walser (who originated in the Swiss Valais ) live in the provinces of Aostatal , Vicelli , and Verbania-Cusio-Ossola . The Móchenos live in the Fersina Valley. In Switzerland , Swiss Germans constitute the majority of the population. They write formally in Standard German, but in many respects have hewn a separate national identity built upon their long history of stable, alpine, isolationist, multinationalist neutrality and their various Swiss German language dialects, which is basically incomprehensible to someone who speaks only Standard German. In Austria and Liechtenstein , both of which are primarily German-speaking countries, the situation is less extreme, but nevertheless, there are very few who would call Swiss, Austrians, or Liechtensteiners ''Volksdeutsche'', if only because it sounds like Pan-German nationalism and also because it may offend or belittle them. In France , the Alsace - Lorraine region and cities such as Strasbourg (with bilingual signs) and Diedenhofen (now Thionville ) were originally German-speaking, but since territorial transfers resulting from the world wars, and given the French take on language, ethnicity, and the Republic, assimilation has decimated the Alsatian dialect. The German-speaking population is estimated at 1,500,000, plus another 40,000 for ethnic Luxemburger s. In Belgium , there is also a German minority, who form the majority in their region of 71,000 inhabitants (though Ethnologue puts the national total at 150,000, not including Limburgisch and Luxembourgish ). In Luxembourg , Germans constitute the majority, though they speak the Luxemburgish Language , which has a separate written standard. In the Netherlands , there are 380,000 Germans, though the Dutch-German Language Continuum clouds the issue considerably. In Denmark , the part of Schleswig that is now South Jutland County (or Nordschleswig ) has about 23,000 Germans. These Germans mostly speak the Schleswigsch variety of Plattdeutsch . Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union The great bulk of ethnic Germans outside of the German-speaking countries have historically been concentrated in Central and Eastern Europe , and these Germans are the population to which the term ''Volksdeutsche'' is most frequently applied. There are many ethnic Germans in the countries that are now Germany and Austria's neighbors to the east— Poland , the Czech Republic , Slovakia , Hungary , and Slovenia — but there are or have been significant populations in such areas as Romania , Moldova , Ukraine , and Russia . The German presence in Central and Eastern Europe is rooted in centuries of history, that of Prussia , Austria-Hungary , Bukovina , Königsberg (now Kaliningrad ), Bessarabia and of a fractious Germany and eastward parts of Europe made up of many city states, whose royal families ruled over multi-ethnic populations. Every city of even modest size as far east as Russia had a German quarter and a Jew ish quarter (though, of course, there were relatively few Jews east of the Pale Of Settlement ). Travellers along any road would pass through, for example, a German village, then a Czech village, then a Polish village, etc., depending on the region. Eastward expansion ''See main articles '' East Colonisation '' and '' Ostflucht Near the end of the Migration Period (300-900 AD) that brought the Germanic and Slavic tribes as well as the Huns , etc., to what is now Central Europe, Slavs expanded westwards at the same time as Germans expanded eastwards. The result was German Colonization as far east as Romania , and Slavic colonization as far west as present-day Lübeck (on the Baltic Sea ), Hamburg (connected to the North Sea ), and along the river Elbe and its tributary Saale further south. After Christianization , the superior organization of the Roman Catholic Church led to further German expansion, known as the Medieval '' Drang Nach Osten ''. By 1100 or so, various rulers were often inviting ethnic Germans to their territories as craftsmen, miners, or farmers. At the same time, naval innovations led to a German domination of trade in the Baltic Sea and Eastern Central Europe through the Hanseatic League . Along the trade routes, Hanseatic trade stations became centers of Germanness where German urban law ''( Stadtrecht )'' was promoted by the presence of large, relatively wealthy German populations and their influence on the worldly powers. Thus some of the people whom we today often consider "Germans", with a common culture and Worldview very different from that of the surrounding Rural peoples, colonized as far north of present-day Germany as Bergen (in Norway ), Stockholm (in Sweden ), and Vyborg (in Russia ). At the same time, it is important to note that the Hanseatic League was not exclusively German in any ethnic sense. Many towns who joined the league should not at all be characterized as "German"; they were outside of the Holy Roman Empire , which even in itself was not in any way exclusively German. |