The Masurian People's Party ( Polish : Mazurska Partia Ludowa , MPL German : Masurische Volkspartei , MVP) was a pro-Polish agrarian political party active in Masuria between 1896 and 1914. The party was formed in 1896 but due to repression by the German police and local Prussian authorities, it did not adopt an official program until 1898.
106-802: The party was formed in response to, and was focused on opposing the policy of forced Germanization pursued by the Prussian authorities with regards to the Polish-speaking population of the region. The party was established in November 1896 by the publicist Karol Bahrke from Warsaw and the poet Michał Kajka in Ełk (Lyck). Its founding had been initiated by the "Central Committee for Silesia, Kaszubia and Masuria" ( Polish : Komitet Centralny dla Śląska, Kaszub i Mazur ) in Warsaw led by Antoni Osuchowski and Juliusz Bursche ;
212-667: 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." The Nazis considered land to
318-414: A UN Special Rapporteur on racism , released a UN Human Rights Council report which states that "more than 75% of the world's known stateless populations belong to minority groups" and highlights the role of ethnonationalism in the international deprivation of citizenship rights. In the report, Achiume re-stated that international human rights law prohibits citizens from discriminating against non-citizens on
424-436: 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
530-407: A common faith, and a common ethnic ancestry ". Those of other ethnicities may be classified as second-class citizens . Diaspora-studies scholars broaden the concept of "nation" to diasporic communities. The terms "ethnonation" and "ethnonationalism" are sometimes used to describe a conceptual collective of dispersed ethnics. Defining an ethnos widely can lead to ethnic nationalism becoming
636-419: A common nation based upon ethnicity, or for the establishment of an ethnocratic (mono-ethnocratic or poly-ethnocratic) political structure in which the state apparatus is controlled by a politically and militarily dominant ethnic nationalist group or a group of several ethnic nationalist groups from select ethnicities to further its interests, power and resources. In scholarly literature, ethnic nationalism
742-438: 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
848-406: A form of pan-nationalism or macronationalism, as in cases such as pan-Germanism or pan-Slavism . In scholarly literature, ethnic nationalism is usually contrasted with civic nationalism , although this distinction has also been criticized. The study of ethnonationalism emerged in the early 20th century in the interwar period between World War I and World War II , with the "redrawing of
954-613: A frequent target of ethnonationalist rhetoric related to "ethnic purity and religious, cultural or linguistic preservation". Even countries with proud histories of immigration have fallen prey to the vilification of "certain racial, religious and national groups" on prejudicial grounds. Achiume called the case of the Rohingya Muslims a "chilling example", with the Burma Citizenship Act of 1982 discriminating based on ethnicity and rendering many Rohingya stateless. The violation of
1060-544: 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
1166-486: 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. 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
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#17328553199941272-475: 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: Germanisation began with the classification of people as defined on the Nazi Volksliste . The Germans regarded
1378-418: Is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity , with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic ) approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group. The central tenet of ethnic nationalists is that "nations are defined by a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language ,
1484-511: 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 [...]
1590-501: 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. Ethnic nationalism Ethnic nationalism , also known as ethnonationalism ,
1696-463: 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
1802-791: 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
1908-554: Is usually contrasted with civic nationalism . Ethnic nationalism bases membership of the nation on descent or heredity, often articulated in terms of common blood or kinship, rather than on political membership. Hence, nation states with strong traditions of ethnic nationalism tend to define nationality or citizenship by jus sanguinis (the law of blood, descent from a person of that nationality), and countries with strong traditions of civic nationalism tend to define nationality or citizenship by jus soli (the law of soil, birth within
2014-664: The Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People as part of its basic laws under the Fourth Netanyahu government , an act which was highly controversial within Israel itself and among various Jewish groups in the diaspora , as it potentially threatened the formula of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state . This law was controversial especially with many Left Zionists , who saw
2120-606: The 1907 German federal elections , when the candidates of the German Conservative Party were elected with 93.1% (Oletzko-Lyck-Johannisburg) and 73.1% (Ortelsburg-Sensburg) of the vote, and slightly increased to 2,698 in 1912 . In the East Prussian provincial elections of 1925, the Masurian People's Party received 1,366 votes and in the 1928 German federal election , 298 votes. Germanization#Situation in
2226-485: The 2016 US presidential election , ethnonationalism has been pushed to the fore of the American political consciousness by the identity politics of Donald Trump surrounding what it means to be a "true" American, which has resulted in ethnocentric ideals becoming "a robust predictor of vote choice for Trump" among white Americans . Thompson notes that data from the 2016 American National Election Studies (ANES) has revealed
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#17328553199942332-487: 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
2438-611: The Cold War , the independence movement initiated in former European colonies in Asia and Africa reinvigorated research into ethnic, tribal and national identities and the "political difficulties" stemming from their interactions with territorial statehood, while the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s and the "resurgence of ethnic and national claims and conflicts in its aftermath" only further spurred ethnonationalism scholarship in
2544-538: The German nobility . After 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
2650-500: 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
2756-602: 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
2862-807: 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
2968-733: 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
3074-660: The Malaysian New Economic Policy is based on race, not deprivation. For instance, all Bumiputra, regardless of their financial standing, are entitled to a 7 percent discount on houses or property, including luxurious units, but low-income non-Bumiputra receives no such financial assistance. Other preferential policies include quotas for admission to government educational institutions, qualifications for public scholarships, marking of universities exam papers, special classes prior to university's end of term exams, positions in government and ownership of businesses. Most of
3180-599: 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
3286-533: 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
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3392-513: The Rohingya , have been identified as causes of various genocides and episodes of ethnic cleansing . In his 2005 book The Great Game of Genocide , historian Donald Bloxham argued that the Armenian genocide "represents a clear logic of ethnic nationalism when it is carried to its absolute extreme in multinational societies". Ethnic nationalism is present in many states' immigration policies in
3498-553: 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,
3604-597: The assimilation of minority ethnic groups into the dominant group, for example as with Italianisation . This assimilation may or may not be predicated on a belief in some common ancestry with assimilated groups (for example with Germanisation in the Second World war). An extreme version is racial nationalism . Recent theories and empirical data suggest that people maintain dual lay beliefs about nationality, such that it can be both inherited biologically at birth and acquired culturally in life. In 2018, Tendayi Achiume ,
3710-400: 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
3816-474: The "most obvious driver of racial discrimination in citizenship and immigration laws" and driven by populist leaders defining nations "in terms of assumed blood ties and ethnicity". In the 19th and 20th centuries, European colonial powers used ethnonationalism to justify barring colonial subjects from citizenship, and in Europe, Jews and Roma were excluded from citizenship on the same grounds. Today, migrants are
3922-584: 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
4028-541: 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. Due to migration within the German Empire as many as 350,000 ethnic Poles made their way to
4134-412: The 19th century Defunct Defunct 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
4240-802: 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
4346-612: 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
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4452-471: 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
4558-582: The East". 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
4664-530: The Eastern Front. An unknown number of "stolen children" were taken to Nazi Germany for Germanisation. 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
4770-526: 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
4876-538: The Germanisation of ethnic Poles in the Ruhr area. 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
4982-519: The Russian border with Austrian Government backing. 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
5088-578: 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
5194-637: The United States. The central political tenet of ethnic nationalism is that ethnic groups are entitled to self-determination . The outcome of this right to self-determination may vary, from calls for self-regulated administrative bodies within an already established society, to an autonomous entity separate from that society, to the institution of ethnic federalism within a multi-ethnic society, to establishing an independent sovereign state removed from that society. In international relations, it also leads to policies and movements for irredentism to claim
5300-704: 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
5406-489: The basis of their race, descent, national or ethnic origin and she also stated that citizenship, nationality, and immigration laws which discriminate against non-citizens are violations of international law. She also noted the role of laws restricting marriage rights with respect to certain national, religious, ethnic or racial groups, which she said were "often deployed by states to preserve notions of national, ethnic and racial "purity"." Achiume called ethnonationalist politics
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#17328553199945512-657: The bill as undermining Israeli democracy. In Malaysia , the Bumiputera principle recognises the "special position" of the Malays provided in the Constitution of Malaysia , in particular Article 153 . However, the constitution does not use the term bumiputra; it defines only "Malay" and " indigenous peoples " (Article 160(2)), "natives" of Sarawak (161A(6)(a)), and "natives" of Sabah (Article 161A(6) (b)). Some pro-Bumiputra policies exist as affirmative action for bumiputras since
5618-697: 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,
5724-410: The candidate in the Ortelsburg-Sensburg (Szczytno-Mragowo) district received 5,874 votes, around a third of the total. He had also been supported by the German Free-minded People's Party with about 4,000 votes. In the 1903 German federal election , Lewandowski received about 4,000 votes, Bogumił Labusz, who replaced Bahrke as a candidate received only 130. The number of votes dropped further to 1,451 in
5830-412: 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
5936-420: The committee supported the foundation of the party financially and institutionally. Other notable founder members included the agrarian peasant activists Bogumił Labusz and Gustaw Leyding . The first meeting of the founders at the house of Bahrke, on November 8, 1896, was dispersed by German police. However, before this occurred the delegates had managed to form a 30-member electoral committee. The program of
6042-402: The creation of a state for the Jewish people in Palestine as a solution to the Jewish question in Europe posed by Romantic nationalists . In his later work, The Old New Land , Herzl envisioned a bi-national state , where Jews only made up a majority in a few cities and everyone spoke German . Concerns about ethnonationalism in Israel were raised since the Knesset 's adoption of
6148-411: 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
6254-462: 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
6360-478: 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
6466-424: 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
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#17328553199946572-464: The end of and after World War II, however, these territories have been mostly degermanised. Early 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
6678-445: 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
6784-474: 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. 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
6890-426: 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
6996-466: 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
7102-413: The form of repatriation laws . Armenia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Croatia , Finland , Germany , Hungary , Ireland , Israel , Serbia and Turkey provide automatic or rapid citizenship to members of diasporas of their predominant ethnic group, if desired. The State of Israel originated from the conceptions and principles of Theodore Herzl 's work Der Judenstaat , which envisioned
7208-450: 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
7314-690: 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
7420-417: 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
7526-505: The last meaningful territories of the HRE not dominated yet by the German language, was subjected to two centuries of re catholicization 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
7632-403: The late 20th century. Increased international migration as a function of contemporary globalization has also given rise to "ethno-national" movements, including reactionary " nativist " groups focused on exclusionary identity politics . In the developed world, such trends have in some cases taken on an explicitly xenophobic and racist character, as seen in the example of " white nationalism " in
7738-431: 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, even when they were already German-speaking. 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
7844-463: 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
7950-475: The nation state). Ethnic nationalism is, therefore, seen as exclusive, while civic nationalism tends to be inclusive. Rather than allegiance to common civic ideals and cultural traditions, then, ethnic nationalism tends to emphasise narratives of common descent. Some types of ethnic nationalism are firmly rooted in the idea of ethnicity as an inherited characteristic, for example black nationalism or white nationalism , often ethnic nationalism also manifests in
8056-535: 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
8162-403: 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
8268-616: 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
8374-664: 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
8480-509: 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
8586-594: The party was not approved until January 25, 1898. The party was centrist in nature and drew most of its support from Masurian Polish speaking peasants. The main points of its program concentrated on the protection of the Polish language in Masuria, opposition to Germanization , as well as ensuring freedom of religion (the party included both Catholics and Protestants). The program also focused on agrarian issues, including land reform , increased spending on rural infrastructure and progressive taxation . In Ortelsburg (Szczytno),
8692-508: 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
8798-424: The policies were established in the 1970s. Many policies focus on trying to achieve a Bumiputra share of corporate equity of at least 30% of the total. Ismail Abdul Rahman proposed that target after the government was unable to agree on a suitable policy goal. Although American nationalism is typically described as a paradigmatic example of civic nationalism, political scientist Jack Thompson has argued that since
8904-471: The political map of Europe in part along ethnic and national lines according to a proclaimed "right of peoples" to self-determination and the rise of fascist ethnocentric ideologies (including Nazism ). Philosopher Hans Kohn was one of the first to differentiate ethnic nationalism from civic nationalism in his 1944 publication The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background . During
9010-513: 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
9116-544: 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
9222-582: 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
9328-599: 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
9434-445: The rights of Afro-Caribbean British citizens from the " Windrush generation " is a pertinent example of similar prejudice in the developed world but states all over the world use misinformation to portray "certain racial, national and religious groups as inherent threats to national security" and justify stripping or denying rights. Extreme forms of ethnic nationalism, as in the case of Myanmar and its government's persecution of
9540-408: 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
9646-557: 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
9752-443: 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
9858-495: The town considered the party's heartland, the Masurian People's Party had 30 members in 1907. Andreas Kossert estimated there were a few hundred members in all of Masuria at most. The official organ of the party was the newspaper Gazeta Ludowa , whose chief editor was Bahrke. The newspaper was subsidized by Polish banks from Greater Poland and most of the 2,500 copies (1897) were distributed free of charge. Gazeta Ludowa stopped being published in 1902. Another newspaper, Mazur ,
9964-682: 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"). 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
10070-501: 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
10176-638: 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
10282-499: 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
10388-587: 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
10494-858: 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
10600-420: 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
10706-950: 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. 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
10812-460: 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. "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
10918-433: 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
11024-523: Was published from 1906 on in Ortelsburg (Szczytno) where Marcin Biedermann, a Polish banker from Poznań , acquired a printer. The number of copies, again distributed free of charge, rose from 500 in 1908 to 2,000 before the start of World War I. In the 1898 German federal election , Bahrke received 229 out of 17,832 votes in the district of Oletzko-Lyck-Johannisburg (Olecko-Ełk-Pisz). Eugen Zenon Lewandowski,
11130-725: 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
11236-523: 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
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