Population change

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Umvolkung (or "ethnomorphosis") is a term from the National Socialist national politics that was used in the conquered eastern areas to gain living space in the east and is closely related to the General Plan East . He meant, on the one hand, the re- Germanization of ethnic Germans who had not yet completely alienated themselves from "Germanness" in the Slavic environment, and on the other hand, the resettlement of certain ethnic groups in newly allocated areas in order to strive for ethnic uniformity in clearly delimited areas and the " state-colonialist settlement project ”( Jürgen Osterhammel , 2009) of the“ Greater German Reich ”with borders on the Urals .

The Romanist Victor Klemperer , who was banned from working in the Third Reich and who analyzed the vocabulary of the Nazi regime and whose research found its way into the dictionary of the monster  by Dolf Sternberger and WE Süsskind , was the first to take a language-critical view of the term Umvolkung .

The term is used today by right-wing extremist and right-wing populist groups in continuity with völkisch thought patterns to criticize multiculturalism and the increasing proportion of non-Germans (foreigners and Germans with a migration background) in the population.

Origin and background

Umvolkung or ethnomorphosis therefore takes up extremely nationalist-racist to proto-fascist ideas that were already represented in the Pan-German Association in the Empire, but then became alarmingly concrete from 1916 in the so-called Fatherland Party in the First World War and from 1917 in the settlement of German soldiers as Defeat fortified farmers in Upper East by General Erich Ludendorff in eastern Poland.

The designation was first mentioned in 1925 by Karl Christian von Loesch in his contribution Germanized, De-Germanized and Renegates . In it she is related to the nation-state concern that since the unification in 1871 , but mainly due to the reduction of Germany by the territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles , the number of people living outside the borders of the Reich Germans, in contrast to the Reich German people German were called, had grown considerably. This disquiet found its clearest expression after the founding of the states of Poland and Czechoslovakia , in whose territories there lived considerable German minorities who were excluded from the right of self-determination of the peoples due to geographical conditions or power-political interests and the associated separation from the Reich . At the same time, through their presence and insistence on independence, they questioned the principle of ethnic homogeneity in the new states. In the Weimar Republic, East research saw this independence as an important element of the prerequisites for the “ Germanization of the East”, in order to prepare for the population change through scientific exploration in folk and cultural soil research. The term itself comes from u. a. by Albert Brackmann . He saw the Umvolung in the sense of a Germanization or "Germanization" of German-friendly population groups in the conquered eastern areas and the allocation of certain peoples in them appropriate settlement areas as the goal of the North and East German Research Association (NOFG) led by him . Shaped by the tradition of nationalism, imperialism and anti-Semitism, Brackmann defined the concept of resettlement as the conscious Germanization of Eastern European areas as the creation of new living space. This also meant the spread of German culture, but above all the displacement of supposedly inferior, deliberately degraded ethnic groups such as Slavs or - although this is only a religious community - Eastern Judaism.

In the time of National Socialism , the term was used on the one hand to mean assimilation and on the other hand to mean Germanization or Germanization . In the former sense, for example, Germans abroad feared a change of population, i.e. a cultural adaptation to the culture of the host country, if the children were raised by non-German maids. In the second sense, the term was applied to the planned Germanization of conquered areas such as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . The term re-population can not be understood without the concept of race . Without a recognizable, meaningful definition of race , however, the term re-population remains empty.

The book Das Phantom “Rasse” writes: “The race concept is an artificial and visually powerful system of order. It doesn't exist in nature, but it works as a social reality. The construction of races is the result of racism, not its foundation. Race ideas and racial images, which have been reproduced in science, politics and everyday life for centuries, combine physical characteristics with social and cultural patterns and claim to be able to assign people so clearly. The fact that the selected criteria change at random is not visible in these images. "

After the conclusion of the Hitler-Stalin Pact , around 1 million ethnic Germans from areas that were to become part of the Soviet Union were initially resettled in areas occupied by Germany under the slogan “Heim ins Reich”. The preparatory work of research into the East was then reflected in the General Plan East, which was tackled in 1940, and the planned population change in the conquered areas. In the planning draft of December 23, 1942, at Himmler's request, it also extended to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the CdZ area Alsace, the CdZ area Lower Styria and the CdZ area Carinthia and Carniola . The first re- population actions concerned the “integrated eastern areas” (cf. Reichsgaue Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia ) with the settlement of “ethnic Germans” instead of the Polish population expelled into the “ general government ” and treated as having no rights or “special rights”, for whom a colonial administration was established . The special legal treatment of the " foreign people " included not only enslavement but also the possibility of being entered in the " German People's List ".
Later campaigns with extensive population changes were the Zamość campaign and the "Germanizing" settlement attempt undertaken between autumn 1942 and the end of 1943 in Hegewald near Schytomyr around Heinrich Himmler's headquarters: after the expulsion of 15,000 Ukrainians, 10,000 ethnic Germans were resettled in their place. After a short time it was discovered that Himmler's plan to merge the ethnic Germans from different parts of Eastern Europe into “well-fortified Germanic settlers” within a few years could not be adhered to. There were great differences in their cultural peculiarities and ideas about the future between the newly settled, different ethnic German groups.

Current use

In 1929, the population scientist Friedrich Burgdörfer published the work The Decline in Births and Combat It - The Question of Life for the German People . In it, he characterized the umvolkung as a threat to the German people as a result of birth defect and "national foreign" settlement policy.

In this definition, the term Umvolung was taken up by right-wing extremist , new -right and right-wing populist groups and people and used as a catchphrase to express their theory of foreign infiltration by immigrants , for example because of their supposedly higher birth rate or because of the fact that there were too many naturalizations . Due to the highly regarded than immigrants share in her native Europe is of umvolkung threatened. The idea continued in the extreme right of the Weimar Republic, in the acquisition of living space under National Socialism, and is now being used again in the language of the AfD . "It is an attempt to gradually replace the German people with a population that has come from all parts of the world."

In the basic program of the AfD it is stated that the asylum policy and its massive abuse "lead to a rapid, unstoppable settlement of Europe, especially Germany, by people from other cultures and parts of the world".

In connection with the resolution passed by the UN migration pact say right-wing politicians that the UN so that a umvolkung wants to achieve. The AfD chairwoman Alice Weidel warned of a planned "resettlement program that leaves no stone unturned in Europe!" The right-wing populist author Akif Pirinçci claimed in his book Umvolkung , published in 2016 by the right-wing Antaios Verlag : How the Germans exchanged quietly be : “Humanism à la unworldly welcoming culture is the first façade of lies that has to be torn down if we as Germans assert ourselves and don't want to accept that we will end up in an oriental bazaar and finally disappear from the surface of the earth as a country and people! "

The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia stated in 2018:

“Right now, right-wing extremists are using the term to spread their xenophobic positions. They want to give the impression that immigration would drive out an ethnically homogeneous population group by another ethnically homogeneous population group. "

In Austria, Umvolkung has been used repeatedly since the 1990s by FPÖ officials such as Andreas Mölzer , John Gudenus or the former member of the National Council, Franz Lafer . Lafer's statement on the then newly drafted naturalization law and the high foreigner birth rate: "I would almost like to say that it already resembles a re-population". In 2013, the FPÖ politician Karl Schnell spoke of a change of population in the election campaign for the state elections in Salzburg in 2013 .

In Germany, the former CDU member of the Bundestag Bettina Kudla used the term approvingly on Twitter in 2016 .

In 2015, right-wing populist journalist Eva Herman spread the conspiracy theory in an article for the magazine Compact that the refugee crisis was the work of secret elites who were up to a re-population or destruction of the values ​​of the Christian West . The AfD member of the Bundestag Tino Chrupalla called in March 2018 at a party celebration to use the term in the context of German family policy.

From umvolkung also AFD Bundestag deputies have spoken such. B. Heiko Heßenkemper , the spokesman for the Saxony regional group. You speak of a " population exchange " for which the UN and German government organs allegedly advertise. These are clear characteristics of extremist attitudes. The extremism researcher Steffen Kailitz ruled in August 2018 that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is hiding the most important part of the Identitarian Movement , namely an AfD wing in Saxony that propagates these terms. According to Kailitz, this völkisch-national wing has “clearly crossed the line to right-wing extremism”. A working group led by the AfD member of the Bundestag Roland Hartwig , which was supposed to develop recommendations on how the AfD could avoid observation by the protection of the Constitution , advised in future to use “ extremist stimulus words” such as “Umvolkung”, “Überfremdung”, “Volkstod”. or ' re-education ' ”.

See also

literature

  • Detlef Brandes : "Resettlement, resettlement, racial inventory". NS “Volkstumsppolitik” in the Bohemian countries (= publications of the Collegium Carolinum . Vol. 125). Oldenbourg, Munich 2012 ISBN 978-3-486-71242-1 .
  • Helmut Kellershohn : Umvolung . In: Bente Gießelmann, Robin Heun, Benjamin Kerst, Lenard Suermann, Fabian Virchow (eds.): Concise dictionary of right-wing extremist fighting terms . Wochenschau Verlag, Schwalbach 2015, ISBN 978-3-7344-0155-8 , pp. 282-297.
  • Isabel Heinemann : "Race, settlement, German blood". The Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS and the racial reorganization of Europe (= Modern Era . Vol. 2). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89244-623-7 .
  • Bruno Wasser: Himmler's spatial planning in the east. The General Plan East in Poland 1940–1944 (= city, planning, history . Vol. 15). With a foreword by Czeslaw Madajczyk . Birkhäuser, Basel a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-7643-2852-5 .
  • Jiri Nemec: population change . In: Michael Fahlbusch et al. (Ed.): Handbook of the Volkish Sciences . 2nd Edition. Berlin, De Gruyter 2017, pp. 1158–1164, ISBN 978-3-11-042989-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Osterhammel: The transformation of the world. A history of the 19th century, 4th, updated edition, CH Beck, Munich 2009, p. 531 f.
  2. ^ Dolf Sternberger, Gerhard Storz, WE Süsskind Ullstein: From the dictionary of the inhuman. Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-548-34335-X .
  3. ^ Victor Klemperer: LTI. Philologist's notebook. ed Elke Fröhlich, Stuttgart 2018.
  4. ^ Karl Christian von Loesch: Germanized, De-Germanized and Renegates. In: People among Nations. , Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt Verlag, 1925, pp. 213–243.
  5. ↑ Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-092864-8 , p. 617 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  6. ^ Naika Foroutan, Susanne Illmer, Christian Geulen, Klaus Vogel, Susanne Wernsing (eds.): The phantom "Race": On the history and effectiveness of racism, Böhlau-Verlag GmbH, 2018, ISBN 978-3-412-51147-0 .
  7. ^ HH Schubert: People's political requirements of the German people's list
  8. ^ Peter Longerich : Heinrich Himmler. Biography, Siedler: Munich 2008, p. 605 f.
  9. ↑ Thomas Urban : The loss. The Expulsion of the Germans and Poles in the 20th Century, page 67, licensed edition for the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2005, Verlag CH: Beck oHG, Munich 2004
  10. ↑ a b Burgdörfer, Friedrich: The decline in births and how to combat it - The vital question of the German people , Berlin, Richard Schoetz Verlag, 1929, p. 131.
  11. ^ Article ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) by Andreas Mölzer on the FPÖ website
  12. ↑ https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/zum-nachlesen-gaulands-rede-im-wortlaut-14269861.html?GEPC=s5
  13. ↑ https://www.afd.de/grundsatzprogramm/
  14. ↑ How the AfD creates mood with half-truths. In: Spiegel Online. November 2, 2018, accessed March 22, 2019 .
  15. ^ Christian Schröder: New pamphlet "Umvolkung": Akif Pirinçci finds a new publisher. www.tagesspiegel.de, April 13, 2016
  16. ↑ State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia: NRW Annual Report on 2017 , p. 30.
  17. ↑ And again an FP Umvolker report by the DÖW from 1998
  18. ↑ Stenographic minutes of the 134th session of the National Council, XX GP , page 108 .
  19. ^ FPÖ-Schnell and the "Umvolkung": Sharp criticism , Der Standard , April 15, 2013
  20. ↑ CDU MPs tweet about "Umvolkung" . Spiegel Online , September 24, 2016, accessed on October 1, 2016.
    Nazi term used: outrage over tweet by CDU member Kudla . dpa article on FAZ.net , September 24, 2016, accessed on October 1, 2016.
    Bettina Kudla: CDU member speaks of “Umvolkung” . Die Zeit , September 24, 2016, accessed on October 1, 2016
    CDU member of the Bundestag criticized Merkel with the Nazi term . sueddeutsche.de , September 24, 2016, accessed October 1, 2016.
  21. ↑ Michael Butter: "Nothing is what it seems". About conspiracy theories. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2018, pp. 9-12, 23-28, etc.
  22. ↑ Chrupalla draws a 100-day balance. In: Saxon newspaper . March 10, 2018, accessed March 22, 2019 .
  23. ↑ MDR Sachsenspiegel , February 24, 2018 MDR
  24. ↑ Sebastian Pittelkow and Katja Riedel: Observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution - Own report brings AfD into distress. tagesschau.de. , November 2, 2018, accessed November 11, 2018.