The
German people () 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).
Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 66–75 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 66 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 the population, identified as
German American in the
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 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),
Argentina (approx. 7,5% of the population) and
Chile (approx. 4% 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 were fully or partly of German ancestry, forming the largest single ethnic group in the country. States with the highest percentage of Americans of German descent are in the northern
Midwest (especially
Wisconsin,
Minnesota,
North Dakota,
South Dakota,
Nebraska,
Iowa, and
Kansas), and the
Mid-Atlantic state,
Pennsylvania. But Germanic immigrant enclaves existed 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
Germanic tribes from ca. 100 AD until 300 AD.
The area of modern-day Germany in the
European Iron Age was divided into the (
Celtic)
La Tène horizon in
Southern Germany and the (
Germanic)
Jastorf culture in
Northern Germany.
The predominant
Y-chromosome haplogroup in Germans is
R1b, followed by
I and
R1a; the predominant
mitochondrial haplogroup is
H, followed by
U and
T.
The Germanic peoples during the
Migrations Period came into contact with other peoples; in the case of the populations settling in the territory of modern Germany, they encountered
Celts to the south, and
Balts and
Slavs towards the east.
The
Limes Germanicus was breached in AD 260. Migrating Germanic tribes commingled with the local
Gallo-Roman populations in what is now
Swabia and
Bavaria.
The migration-period peoples who would coalesce into a "German" ethnicity were the
Saxones,
Frisii,
Franci,
Thuringii,
Alamanni and
Bavarii. By the 800s, the territory of modern Germany had been united under the rule of
Charlemagne. Much of what is now
Eastern Germany remained Slavonic-speaking (
Sorbs and
Veleti).
Medieval history
A German ethnicity emerged 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 was gradual and lacked any clear definition.
After
Christianization, the
Roman Catholic Church and local rulers led German expansion and settlement in areas inhabited by Slavs and Balts (
Ostsiedlung). Massive German settlement led to their assimilation of Baltic (
Old Prussians) and Slavic (
Wends) populations, who were 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 German culture.
German town law (Stadtrecht) was promoted by the presence of large, relatively wealthy German populations and their influence on political power.
Thus people who would be considered "Germans", with a common culture, language, and
worldview different from that of the surrounding
rural peoples, colonized trading towns 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 and a number of them may only loosely be characterized as
German. The Empire was not entirely German either.
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. It was not exclusively German, and notably included a sizeable
Slavic minority. The
Thirty Years' War, a series of conflicts fought mainly in the territory of modern Germany, confirmed the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. 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 in 1871 when Austria remained outside of the
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 emerged as two competitors. 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 essentially conservative, assuring that little would change in Europe and preventing Germany from uniting. The terms of the
Congress of Vienna came 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. It created the
German Empire as a German
nation-state, effectively excluding the multi-ethnic Austrian
Habsburg monarchy.
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 17% of the United States' population (23% of the
white population) is of mainly German ancestry.
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 German Austria to be integrated into Germany or Switzerland. 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 fifty years before and developed separate cultures in their new lands. This idea was initially welcomed by many ethnic Germans in
Czechoslovakia, Austria,
Poland,
Danzig and western
Lithuania. The
Swiss resisted the idea. They had viewed themselves as a distinctly separate nation since the
Peace of Westphalia of 1648.
After
World War II, because of the ostensible reasons for war and in retaliation for Nazi excesses, eastern European nations, including areas annexed by the
Soviet Union and
Poland, expelled ethnic Germans from their territories, including
Czechoslovakia,
Hungary,
Romania and
Yugoslavia. Most of the 12 million ethnic
German refugees fled to western Germany and Europe, the United States, and South America.
After WWII,
Austrians increasingly saw themselves as a nation distinct from other German-speaking areas of Europe. Recent polls show that no more than 6% of the German-speaking Austrians consider themselves as "Germans". Austrian identity was emphasized along with the "first-victim of Nazism" theory. Today over 80 percent of the Austrians see themselves as an independent nation.
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. On the other hand, significant numbers of ethnic Germans have moved from Germany to other European countries, especially
Switzerland, the
Netherlands,
Britain, and
Spain.
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.
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.
See also
German Americans are common in the US. Light blue indicates counties that are predominantly German ancestry.
