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Germanisation is defined as either the spread of the German language and culture either by force or assimilation, or the adaptation of a word to the German language in linguistics.

Historical Germanisation

In wider sense, Germanisation refers to the process of acculturation of Slavic speakers, populating, after conquests in the early dark ages, areas of the modern eastern Germany to the line of Elbe. The process was performed by elimination of the leading group and pushing most of Slavic speakers into status of serfs yet in Middle Ages. In East Prussia, forced resettlements of the Prussia (Baltic), especially after the 1525 rebellion, contributed to the eventual extinction of the Prussian language in the mid-16th century. The same process happened in Bohemia after the 1620 defeat of Czech Protestants.

Germanisation encountered resistance (e.g. the Hussite movement) and was reverted by the national awakening that occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Lusatia and Slovenia.

In the German colonies, the policy of having German as official language led to the forming of German-based pidgins and creoles, such as Unserdeutsch.

Germanisation policies of Kingdom of Prussia, Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary and Nazi Germany were aimed to expand the German language and culture in areas populated by non-Germans. One example of Germanisation was aimed at national minorities in the Prussian state. Prussian authorities settled German speaking ethnic groups in Polish territories after partitions of Poland, closed down Polish monasteries, and raised taxes for Polish speaking nobility. Later the means of the policy was eradication of non-German languages from public life and from the schools. In addition in 1885 the Prussian Settlement Commission financed from budget was set up to buy land from non-German hands and distribute it among German farmers. Since 1908 the committee was entitled to force the landowners to sell the land. Other means included Prussian deportations 1888: deportation of non-Prussian nationals living in Prussia for longer times (mostly Poles and Jews) and the ban on building houses by non-Germans (see Drzymała's van). Germanisation policy in schools also took form of torture of Polish children by Prussian officials (see Września). Forced Germanisation stimulated resistance, especially by self-education and solidarity between the minority members.

International meeting of socialists held at Brussels in 1902 has condemned the Germanisation of Poles in Prussia naming it "barbarous".

In the Nazi era, the days of minorities in Germany were numbered. "Racially acceptable" children were often taken from their families, in order to be brought up as Germans. In occupied Poland at least 200.000 children were kidnaped from their families in order to be germanised. Obligatory Hitlerjugend membership made dialog between old and young next to impossible, as use of languages other than German was discouraged by officials. Members of minority organisations were sent to concentration camps by German authorities or have been executed.

Examples

Oletzko County was a historic East Prussian county with its capital at Oletzko. The county was populated by Mazurs, a Polish ethnic group. In the process of Germanization, the number of Polish-speaking people declined steadily:
1818 - over 90% of population
1852 - 65%
1861 - 58%
1890 - 46%
1900 - 33.5% (Prussian census)
1890 - 19%

In 1888, the Polish language was completely banned from schools at all levels.

Linguistic Germanisation

In linguistics Germanisation usually means the change in spelling of loanwords to the rules of the German language — for example the change from the imported word 'bureau' to 'Büro'.

See also

• Africanization
• Anti-Polonism
• Cultural imperialism
• Pan-Germanism
• Germanism
• Germanistics
• Cultural imperialism
• Cultural assimilation
• German Eastern Marches Society
• Kulturkampf

• History of Europe
• German language