Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:39, 1 March 2009

German people
Deutsche

(left to right): Luther, Beethoven, Bismarck, Nietzsche, Adenauer, Pope Benedict XVI, Angela Merkel, Claudia Schiffer
Total population
~160,000,000
Regions with significant populations
Germany        ~ 75 million
United States	51,000,000
Brazil	18,000,000
Canada	3,000,000
Argentina	2,800,000
France (mainly Alsace and Moselle)	1,500,000
The  CIS (mainly  Russia and  Kazakhstan)	1,000,000
Australia	742,212
Chile	600,000
Netherlands	320,000
United Kingdom	266,136
Spain	208,349
Paraguay	200,000 - 450,000
Switzerland	164,000
Poland	153,000
Venezuela	110,000
Mexico	100,000
South Africa	80,000-160,000
Austria	74,000
Israel	70,000
Hungary	120,344
Romania	60,088
Uruguay	46,000
Czech Republic	40,000
Bolivia	40,000
Italy	38,000
Ecuador	33,000
Dominican Republic	25,000
Namibia	20,000
Denmark	15-20,000
Portugal	15,498
Ireland	11,797
Philippines	961
Slovakia	5-10,000
Languages
German: High German (Upper German, Central German), Low German (see German dialects)
Religion
Roman Catholic, Protestant (chiefly Lutheran), secular, others
Related ethnic groups
Germanic ethnic groups

The German people (Template:Lang-de) are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship (Federal Germans, Bundesdeutsche), distinguished from people of German ancestry (Deutschstämmige). Historically, in the context of the German Empire (1871-1918), German citizens (Imperial Germans, Reichsdeutsche) were distinguished from ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche).

Out of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 75 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry (mainly in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, France and Canada) who are not native speakers of German.

Thus, the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 75 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.). In the U.S., 43 million or 15.2% of citizens identify as German American according to the United States Census of 2000. Although the percentage has declined, it is still more than any other group. According to the U.S. Census Bureau - 2006 American Community Survey, approximately 51 million citizens identify themselves as having German ancestry.

Ethnic Germans

The term Ethnic Germans may be used in several ways. It may serve to distinguish Germans from those who may have citizenship in the German state but are not Germans; or it may indicate Germans living as minorities in other nations. In English usage, but less often in German, Ethnic Germans may be used for assimilated descendants of German emigrants.

Ethnic Germans form an important minority group in several countries in central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia) as well as in Namibia, Brazil (German-Brazilian) and Argentina (approx. 6% of the population).

Some groups may be classified as Ethnic Germans despite no longer having German as their mother tongue or belonging to a distinct German culture. Until the 1990s, two million Ethnic Germans lived throughout the former Soviet Union, particularly in Russia and Kazakhstan.

In the United States 1990 census, 57 million people are fully or partly of German ancestry, forming the largest single ethnic group in the country. Most Americans of German descent live in the northern Midwest (especially in Wisconsin, North Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, southern Michigan and eastern Missouri), and the Mid-Atlantic states (especially Pennsylvania). But historically Germanic immigrant enclaves can be found in many other states (e.g., the German Texans and the Denver, Colorado area) and to a lesser extent, the Pacific Northwest (i.e. Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington state).

Notable Ethnic German minorities also exist in other Anglosphere countries such as Canada (approx. 9% of the population) and Australia (approx. 4% of the population). As in the United States, most people of German descent in Canada and Australia have almost completely assimilated, culturally and linguistically, into the English-speaking mainstream.

History

The Germans are a Germanic people which as an ethnicity emerged during the Middle Ages. From the multi-ethnic Holy Roman Empire, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) left a core territory that was to become Germany.

Origins

They originated from Jesus's whom in the planet Jupiter. Then, bowser attacked them during their star parade and they were sent to Puerto Rico. they were scared because of the gay's. So they decided to escape from Pluto, so they stole Zelda, and moved to Earth. On Earth they discovered a town called Germany, and renamed it to Germania. but then the Jews came with their penny's and renamed it Germany. Once, there they thrived with the jews, until they forgot to wear Axe. Sot he Jesus/God treaty broke apart, thus causing World War III. Then in 876, the Germans raped themselfs, and that was how Hitler was born. PENIs. PENIS. then a nigger was born, and it turned out to be Osama/Obama. (Yes they are the same person you stupid black white assholes from Mexico who rape school children and hang them in front of the school, so all of the kids see it, and then they rape the dead bodies.) penis in the Vagina. Indeed,

Penis

then the Betales were born with there hit song, Natzi For The World! However, Chuck Norris threathned their land with his 3 fists and werid a$$ beard. The germans were forced to make barbie dolls in hopes that George bush doesnt become president. but tragedy struck! Pianos fell from the sky and killed millions of bypolar zebras. The chinese however, helped the germans by supplying tissues and vaseline to them. The german's jizz then created the Jizz monster known as Solid Snake. Solid snake then bombed a terrosist factory and all was safe. Until, CLOVERFIELD!!!!!!

Medieval history

A German ethnicity emerges in the course of the Middle Ages, under the influence of the unity of Eastern Francia (later Kingdom of Germany) from the 9th century. The process is gradual and lacks any clear definition.

After Christianization, the Roman Catholic Church and local rulers lent the upper hand for a German expansion and settlement in areas inhabited by Slavs and Balts (Ostsiedlung). Massive German settlement led to the assimilation of Baltic (Old Prussians) and Slavic (Wends) populations, in part exhausted by previous warfare.

At the same time, naval innovations led to a German domination of trade in the Baltic Sea and parts of Eastern Europe through the Hanseatic League. Along the trade routes, Hanseatic trade stations became centers of Germanness where German town law (Stadtrecht) was promoted by the presence of large, relatively wealthy German populations and their influence on the worldly powers.

This means that 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 (now in Russia). The Hanseatic League was not exclusively German in any ethnic sense: many towns who joined the league were outside the Holy Roman Empire, which was not entirely German itself, and a number of them may only loosely be characterized as German.

Early Modern period

It was only in the late fifteenth century that the Holy Roman Empire came to be called the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, and even this was not exclusively German, notably including a sizeable Slavic minority. The Thirty Years' War, a series of conflicts fought mainly in modern Germany, confirmed the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Napoleonic Wars gave it its coup de grâce.

Since the Peace of Westphalia, Germany has been "one nation split in many countries" (Kleinstaaterei). The Austrian–Prussian split, confirmed when Austria remained outside of the 1871 created Imperial Germany, was only the most prominent example. Most recently, the division between East Germany and West Germany kept the idea alive.

In the nineteenth century, after the Napoleonic Wars and the fall of the Holy Roman Empire (of the German nation), Austria and Prussia would emerge as two opposite poles in Germany, trying to re-establish the divided German nation. Austria, trying to remain the dominant power in Central Europe, led the way in the terms of the Congress of Vienna. The Congress of Vienna was a very conservative act assuring that little would change in Europe and would prevent Germany from uniting. The terms of the Congress of Vienna would come to a sudden halt following the Crimean War in 1856. This paved the way for German unification in the 1860s. In 1870, Prussia attracted even Bavaria (the old ally of France) in the Franco-Prussian War and the creation of the German Empire as a German nation-state, effectively excluding the multi-ethnic Austrian Habsburg monarchy.

German speaking Austrians continued to consider themselves Germans until the second half of the 20th century, though this had much of its origins in the separate political developments of the 19th century. The ethnogenesis of Dutch people was earlier.

During the 19th century in the German territories, rapid population growth due to lower death rates, combined with poverty, spurred millions of Germans to emigrate, chiefly to the United States. Today, roughly 30% of the United States' white population is of mainly German ancestry. There will likely be more people of German ancestry in the United States than Germany itself in the next several decades due to population decline in Germany and differential birth rates (1.3-1.4 children per woman in Germany versus 1.8-1.9 per non-Hispanic white woman in the United States).

20th century

The dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire after World War I led to a strong desire of the population of the new Republic of Austria to be integrated into Germany. This was, however, prevented by the Treaty of Versailles.

The Nazis attempted to unite "all Germans" into one realm, including ethnic Germans in eastern European countries, many of whom had emigrated more than one hundred years before. This idea was initially welcomed by many ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Danzig and Western Lithuania. The Swiss resisted the idea, as they had viewed themselvs as a distinctly separate nation since the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.

After World War II, 12 million ethnic Germans were expelled from areas annexed by the Soviet Union and Poland, as well as territories of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia.

The Austrians increasingly saw themselves as a nation distinct from the other German-speaking areas of Europe. Today, some polls have indicated that no more than 10% of the German-speaking Austrians see themselves as part of a larger German community linked by ancestry or language. This phenomenon became commonplace shortly after the Second World War, when Austrian identity was emphasized along with the "first-victim of Nazism" theory.

Between 1950 and 1987, about 1.4 million ethnic Germans and their dependents, mostly from Poland and Romania, arrived in Germany under special provisions of (right of return). With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, "Aussiedler" — ethnic Germans, mainly from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union — took advantage of Germany's liberal law of return to leave the harsh conditions of Eastern Europe. Approximately 2 million have resettled in Germany since the late 1980s.

Subgroups

The Germans are divided into sub-nationalities, some of which form dialectal unities with groups outside Germany that are not considered "Germans". The southern Upper German groups retain a pronounced identity. In the case of the Swabians, there was even a limited movement for Alemannic separatism. The Low German Platt speakers also retain a certain ethnic identity, while the Central German majority has largely abandoned individual nationalisms.

• Upper German
  • the Bavarians (ca. 10 million) form the Austro-Bavarian linguistic group together with those Austrians who speak German and do not live in Vorarlberg and
  • the Swabians (ca. 10 million) form the Alemannic group together with the Alemannic Swiss, Liechtensteiners, Alsatians and Vorarlbergians.
• Central German dialect group (ca. 45 million)
  • Central Franconian, forms a dialectal unity with Luxembourgish
  • Rhine Franconian (Ripuarian, Kölsch)
  • Thuringian
  • Hessian
  • Upper Saxon
  • High Prussian
  • German Silesian
• Yiddish dialects
• Low German (ca. 3-10 million), forms a dialectal unity with Dutch Low Saxon

Ethnic nationalism

After the Napoleonic Wars, a strong ethnic nationalism arose that emphasized, and sometimes overemphasized, the cultural bond among Germans. It was later alloyed at the end of the nineteenth century with the high standing and worldwide influence of German science and culture, to some degree enhanced by Bismarck's military successes. During the following 40 years of almost perpetual economic boom (the Gründerzeit), the Germans assumed a cultural and ethnic supremacy, particularly compared to their neighbors, the Slavs.

Because ethnic nationalism was considered a contributing cause to World War II, the concept has been repressed in German society since World War II. German reunification and other factors have caused some people to embrace and revive the concept. The ethnic nationalist National Democratic Party of Germany received 1.6% of the popular vote in the 2005 federal election.

Religion

Today, Germans include both Protestants and Catholics, with each group about equally represented in Germany. Historically, Protestants formed the majority in the northern two-thirds of the country. With the loss of traditionally Protestant regions after World War II and many Protestants' turning to agnosticism and atheism, especially in the former East Germany, the two groups are about equally represented. Today, non-Christians constitute a majority in certain regions of Germany, both in urban as well as in rural (eastern) regions settled by numerous immigrants of Muslim affiliation. Other large groups of immigrants were or are mostly Catholics (e.g., Poles, Italians and Croatians).

The Protestant Reformation started in the German cultural sphere, when in 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to the door of the Schlosskirche ("castle church") in Wittenberg. Among Protestant denominations, the Lutherans are well represented among Germans, while Calvinists are historically to be found primarily near the Dutch border and in a few cities like Worms and Speyer.

The late nineteenth century saw a strong movement among the Jews in Germany and Austria to assimilate and define themselves as Germans, i.e., as Jewish Germans (a similar movement occurred in Hungary). They made great contributions to cultural, scientific, political and historic fields. In conservative circles, their acculturation was not always embraced. Beginning in social tensions of the 1920s, the rise of Nazis in the 1930s meant an increase in anti-Semitism, as they used the Jewish population as scapegoats for national problems. The Nazis conceived and carried out extreme discrimination and an effort to exterminate the Jews, leading to the deaths or exile of almost all of the pre-World War II Jewish population.

Today Germany is trying to better integrate Gastarbeiter (guest workers) and more recent refugees from ex-Yugoslavia, such as Bosnian Muslims.

Minorities

Since the post-World War II decades and especially the later 20th century, the German-speaking countries of Europe have reflected striking demographic changes resulting from decades of immigration. These changes have led to renewed debates (especially in the Federal Republic of Germany) about who should be considered German. Non-ethnic Germans now make up more than 8% of the German population. They are mostly the descendants of "guest workers" who arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. The Poles, Turks, Moroccans, Italians, Greeks, Portuguese and people from the Balkans form the largest groups of non-ethnic Germans in the country.

As of December 2004, about seven million foreign citizens were registered in Germany, and 19% of the country's residents were of foreign or partially foreign descent. The young are more likely to be of foreign descent than the old. Thirty percent of Germans aged 15 years and younger have at least one parent born outside the country. In the big cities, 60% of children aged 5 years and younger have at least one parent born abroad. The largest group (2.7 million) are descended from ethnic Turks.

A significant number of German citizens (close to 5%), although traditionally considered ethnic Germans, are in fact foreign-born. They retain cultural identities and languages from their native countries. This sets them apart from native Germans. Foreign-born repatriates are not unique to Germany. The English and British equivalent legal term of lex sanguinis (law of blood) stipulates that citizenship is inherited by the child from his/her parents. It has nothing to do with ethnicity.

Ethnic German repatriates from the former Soviet Union constitute by far the largest such group and the second largest ethno-national minority group in Germany. The repatriation provisions made for ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe are unique and have a historical basis. These were areas where Germans traditionally lived, that is, where they had migrated and maintained some German language and culture. Nonetheless, the fact of their separation meant they developed differently from populations within German borders.

The Volga Germans, descendants of ethnic Germans who settled in Russia during the eighteenth century, have presented a controversial case of "repatriation". They have been permitted to claim German citizenship even though neither they nor their ancestors for several generations had been to Germany. In contrast, persons of German descent living in North America, South America, Africa, etc. do not have an automatic right of return. They must prove their eligibility for German citizenship according to applicable German nationality law. Other countries with post-Soviet Union repatriation programs include Greece, Israel and South Korea.

Unlike these ethnic German repatriates, some non-German ethnic minorities in the country, including some who were born and raised in the Federal Republic, choose to remain non-citizens. Although recently German citizenship laws have been relaxed to allow such individuals to become nationalized citizens, many choose not to give up allegiance to the countries of their ethnic roots. They live in Germany under the ambiguous status of an alien resident or a guest worker. Although this status means that people lack certain political rights, they often can still get work and free public higher education, and travel freely abroad.

As a result, close to 10 million people permanently living in the Federal Republic today distinctly differ from the majority of the population in a variety of ways such as race, ethnicity, religion, language and culture. Official statistical sources often fail to account for them as minorities because such sources traditionally survey only German citizens classified under the so-called jus sanguinis (right of blood) system, limiting citizenship to those with German forebears, which has been in effect in Germany since the nineteenth century. It has only recently been partially replaced by the alternative jus soli (right of soil) system, allowing citizenship to all individuals born there. This situation contributes to the invisibility of Germany's minorities. According to some records, Germany is technically one of the most ethnically homogeneous nations; in fact, the Federal Republic is today one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Europe.

References

1. 160 is the maximal estimate, counting all people claiming ethnic German ancestry in the U.S., Brazil and elsewhere as well as Alemannic Swiss and Austrians
2. Deutsche Welle: 2005 German Census figures
3. CIA World Factbook - Germany: People
4. 49.2 million German Americans as of 2005 according to the "US demographic census". Retrieved 2007-08-02. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); see also Languages in the United States#German.
5. "Brasil alemão" comemora 180 anos | Brasil | Deutsche Welle | 25.07.2004
6. 2001 Canadian Census gives 2,742,765 total respondents stating their ethnic origin as partly German, with 705,600 stating "single-ancestry", see List of Canadians by ethnicity.
7. German settlement in Argentina
8. France
9. Alsatians
10. a result of population transfer in the Soviet Union; see ethnologue
11. The Template:PDFlink reports 742,212 people of German ancestry in the 2001 Census. German is spoken by ca. 135,000 , about 105,000 of them Germany-born, see Demographics of Australia
12. Deutscher als die Deutschen
13. Die soziolinguistische Situation von Chilenen deutscher Abstammung
14. CBS, as of 2006
15. German born only; United Kingdom: Stock of foreign-born population by country of birth, 2001
16. INE(2006)
17. It is estimated that ethnic Germans make up 3.3% of the population.
18. 163 923 resident aliens (nationals or citizens) in 2004 (2.2% of total population), compared to 112,348 as of 2000. 2005 report of the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics. 4.6 million including Alemannic Swiss: CIA World Fact Book, identifies the 65% (4.9 million) Swiss German speakers as "ethnic Germans".
19. 2002 census; mainly in Opole Voivodeship, see German minority in Poland.
20. Expat Events in Mexico
21. Germans in South Africa
22. Professor JA Heese in his book Die Herkoms van die Afrikaner (The Origins of Afrikaners) claims the modern Afrikaners (who total around 3.5 million) have 34.4% German heritage. How 'Pure' was the Average Afrikaner?
23. 0.9% of the population (German nationals or citizens only) Statistik Austria - Census 2001, CIA World Factbook; see also Demographics of Austria; 7.9 million including Austrians, if Austrians are regarded as Germans: Austrians are ethnically also included under "Germans" by the US Department of State
25. census 2001
26. German minority
27. There are 6,000 Germans living in Uruguay today and 40,000 descendants of Germans
28. Ethnic German Minorities in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia
29. Land reform worries Bolivia's Mennonites
31. Ethnic groups around the world
32. Dominican Republic
33. Amid Namibia's White Opulence, Majority Rule Isn't So Scary Now
34. in the German-Danish border region; see Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger
36. Slovakia
37. "Nearly 43 million people in the United States identify German as their primary ancestry, the US Census Bureau reported in July 2004"
38. This figure accounts for self-reported ancestry rather than race or ethnicity. See demographics of the United States and European American for more information.
39. "Ancestry — German = 50,764,352"
40. refugee -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
41. Peter Utgaard, Remembering and Forgetting Nazism (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), 188-189. Frederick C. Engelmann, "The Austro-German Relationship: One Language, One and One-Half Histories, Two States", Unequal Partners, ed. Harald von Riekhoff and Hanspeter Neuhold (San Francisco: Westview Press, 1993), 53-54.
42. Fewer Ethnic Germans Immigrating to Ancestral Homeland
43. External causes of death in a cohort of Aussiedler from the former Soviet Union, 1990-2002
44. Template:PDF
45. "Turks in Germany: Two unamalgamated worlds", The Economist, April 3, 2008
46. BiBB: "Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund - neue Definition, alte Probleme", retrieved 25 of May 2008
47. "Poll: Most Turks in Germany Feel Unwelcome", Deutsche Welle, March 13, 2008

See also

• Culture of German-speaking Europe
• European ethnic groups
• Genetic history of Europe
• German Africans
• German Brazilian
• German-Chilean
• German diaspora
• German Filipinos
• German eastward expansion
• German idealism
• German Jews
• German language#Names of the German language in other languages
• German Peruvian
• German Russians
• List of Alsatians and Lorrainians
• List of Austrians
• List of Germans
• List of Swiss people
• List of terms used for Germans
• Organised persecution of ethnic Germans

External links

• Famous Germans
• German, Austrian and Swiss inventors
• Top 100 Germans
• Germans - First arrivals
• German American Heritage Foundation of the USA in Washington, DC

• Articles with unsourced statements from January 2007
• Ethnic groups in Europe
• German people
• Germans
• Germanic peoples