Association of German Minorities in Europe

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The Association of German Minorities in Europe , from 1929 Association of German Ethnic Groups in Europe (VDV), was the umbrella organization of German minorities in other European countries from 1922 to 1944 . The headquarters were in Vienna until 1932 , then in Berlin .

Founding factors and structures

After 1918, the German Reich and Austria-Hungary had to cede large parts of their territories to the victorious powers of the First Western War and to newly created states. As a result, around 8.5 million Germans found themselves as national minorities outside of their original country of origin . Mostly countries in east-central and south-east Europe strove to create homogeneous nation- states and subjected minorities - not only Germans - to a strict policy of assimilation . Against this background, many Germans abroad (at the time also called borderland Germans ) organized themselves into clubs, associations and parties in order to obtain minority protection rights in the “host countries”. As a supranational interest organization and umbrella organization for these associations, the Association of German Minorities in Europe was founded in October 1922 , to which exclusively German ethnic groups from the following countries resident on the European continent belonged:

The founding fathers and main initiators included the Transylvanian Saxon Rudolf Brandsch and the Baltic Germans Ewald Ammende and Paul Schiemann . The associations with the largest number of members within the umbrella organization were the Sudeten Germans, followed by associations of the German minorities in Poland ( Upper Silesia , East Pomerania , West Prussia, etc.). Until 1939 the umbrella organization had a democratically elected presidium, which was composed of representatives from the individual regional associations. A chairman (president) was elected from among the presidium, namely:

The respective association president had no operational functions . He was more of a "figurehead" with representative tasks who represented the German minorities as a whole, for example in the Presidium of the European Nationalities Congress in Geneva . From 1922 to 1931 Carl Georg Bruns and, after his untimely death, from 1931 to 1944 the Baltic German Werner Hasselblatt were employed as general secretaries and full-time legal advisors for the operational management. After 1939 Hasselblatt actually took over the management and chairmanship.

Political tendencies

German settlement and language areas around 1918

In the main, the association represented the interests of the German minorities towards the League of Nations at the European Nationalities Congress . Right from the start, the representatives ran the risk of involuntarily being brought into the vicinity of efforts that pursued territorial revisions. In fact, the umbrella association and the individual German minority organizations were largely financed by the Federal Foreign Office from 1924 at the latest . Officially, the German Reich under Gustav Stresemann declared itself to be the protective power of German minorities abroad. As early as the Weimar Republic , German policy aimed to persuade minorities to stay in order to use them as a lever for future border revisions .

Almost all association presidents did not represent any revisionist goals during their term of office and expressly committed themselves to the international minority organizations. They assumed that a solution of the national questions through irredentism would never be possible and therefore a balance between nations and states would have to be found on the basis of mutual recognition. Accordingly, the financial support from the Foreign Office and the "minority crusade" initiated under Stresemann at the League of Nations did not lead to any noticeable restrictions in the freedom of action of the association chairmen for a long time, especially since the German foreign ministers in the Weimar Republic basically pursued a policy of equalization, not escalation Liberally-minded officials at the VDV retained the upper hand until 1932. Nevertheless, at the instigation of the Foreign Office , the Association of German Minorities in Europe had to rename itself to the Association of German Ethnic Groups in Europe during the Weimar Republic . The resolution was passed on November 24, 1927, and the minority representatives did not officially change the name of the association until two years later in December 1929. For a time, the German government also referred to the association as the “Committee of the German Minorities” or “Committee of the German Ethnic Groups”.

Towards the end of the 1920s, the situation for different ethnic groups worsened in several countries . Minorities were exposed to increasing repression , particularly in Eastern and Southeastern European countries . For example, in the course of the Polonization , the Polish authorities banned German pharmacists, doctors and lawyers from practicing their profession, or in Czechoslovakia over 30,000 civil servants of German nationality were dismissed in the course of the Czechoslovakization . In the SHS state , the use of popular names (including those of Serbs , Croats and Slovenes ) was banned, and in future all residents should only consider themselves " Yugoslavs ". In spite of existing minority protection treaties, expropriations were carried out with the aim of achieving emigration of sections of the population who did not want to be assimilated. In addition to German ethnic groups, this affected Hungarian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Romanian and other minorities. Several hundred thousand people from the German minority in Poland alone emigrated to Germany by 1933. In fact, with the beginning of the Great Depression, the Weimar Republic was facing an economic and social collapse; Thus, the uncontrollable immigration represented an additional financial challenge with regard to the integration of immigrants .

Against this background, the aim was to centralize the work of the association from the German Reich, which was particularly popular with the association's general secretary, Werner Hasselblatt, who was newly appointed in 1931. Several members of the Presidium criticized his appointment because he openly sympathized with the national socialists ' politics of nationality . Nevertheless, those in favor of more restrictive support for the German minorities prevailed. As a result, Hasselblatt moved the association's headquarters from Vienna to Berlin in 1932. The Federal Foreign Office immediately strengthened its position by no longer going to individual German minority organizations abroad, but only directly to the VDV. In this way, the association became the only channel for distributing German funding, which considerably undermined the previous autonomy of the individual German minority organizations.

Loss of meaning and decline

Resettlement of German ethnic groups after the Hitler-Stalin Pact (contemporary propaganda map)

Although Werner Hasselblatt was close to the National Socialists, his attitude and the resulting importance of the VDV are viewed differently in recent historiography . According to this, there are serious differences between the “traditionalist” folk politics of the association and the National Socialist folk politics, according to which the association officials had no interest in conquering living space in the East, pursued no racial theories and showed no willingness to subordinate German foreign interests to power-political calculations. After 1933, the majority of the association's officials, along with the former presidents or those in office during the Nazi era, came into conflict with the new rulers in the “mother country”. Even Konrad Henlein did not submit to Hitler's expansive policy until 1937, after he was put under massive pressure.

In fact, from autumn 1933 the Volksdeutsche Rat and from 1937 the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle took over sole competence in all matters of ethnic Germans living outside the German Reich , including the administration and distribution of all aid money. The VDV gradually became obsolete after the referendum on Germany's exit from the League of Nations, the dissolution of the European Nationality Congress, the Munich Agreement , the incorporation of the Memelland and the division of Poland according to the Hitler-Stalin Pact . The latter paved the way for forced relocation free, including the Baltic Germans , Volhynia , Bessarabia Germans , Bukovina Germans , Dobrujan Germans , Galicia Germans , but also the Gottschee and South Tyrol . Some of the ethnic groups had lived in these areas for centuries, which now fell to the Soviet Union .

Likewise, the VDV was no longer able to exert any influence in the countries allied with Germany . There, since 1938, ethnic group leaders had been appointed as political leaders, who officially represented the interests of the German minorities in the governments of the respective states. Almost all previous foreign associations disbanded by themselves. From 1940, the work of the still active umbrella association employees was limited to the preparation of reports, memoranda and publications. For the magazine Nation und Staat , which was taken over by the VDV in April 1933 , from October 1942 the association no longer signed, but only Werner Hasselblatt as publisher. In it he repeatedly mentioned that a “unified form of rule” must be avoided, “Germany must not follow the path of Russia in ruling the peoples”; rather, the goal must be the creation of “nationally owned home areas”. He also forwarded the proposals to the Foreign Office as memoranda . With these memoranda, Hasselblatt hoped to be able to establish an intergovernmental "Working Group for European Völkerpolitik", which would advise the East Ministry and the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Ethnicity . In fact, he wanted to create a successor organization for the Association of German Nationalities in Europe , whose funding from the Foreign Office ran out in 1942. This working group was not set up, of course, and Hasselblatt is said to have advertised it in 1944.

When the association ceased its work de jure cannot be verified. The Institute for Contemporary History indicates the period from 1922 to 1944 as the association's existence.

literature

  • Baron Ferdinand von Uexküll-Güldenband, Werner Hasselblatt u. a .: Nation and State: German magazine for the European nationality problem. Wilhelm Braumüller Universitäts-Verlagbuchhandlung, publication date: 1927–1944.
  • Baron Ferdinand von Uexküll-Güldenband, Werner Hasselblatt u. a .: Information about the German ethnic groups in Europe and about general nationality problems. Association of German Ethnic Groups in Europe, Berlin, date of publication: 1936–1940.
  • Michael Garleff (Ed.): Baltic Germans, Weimar Republic and Third Reich. Volume 2. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-12299-7 .
  • Tammo Luther: Volkstumsppolitik of the German Reich 1933–1938. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08535-1 .
  • John Hiden , Martyn Housden : Neighbors or enemies? Germans, the Baltic and beyond. Rodopi, Amsterdam 2008, ISBN 978-90-420-2349-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Garleff: Baltic Germans, Weimar Republic and Third Reich. Volume 2. Böhlau Verlag, 2001, p. 57.
  2. ↑ Tammo Luther: V olkstumsppolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1933-1938: Germans Abroad in the Field of Tension Between Traditionalists and National Socialists. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 50.
  3. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education , accessed on May 10, 2017.
  4. ^ Rolf Wörsdörfer: Hotspot Adria 1915–1955: Construction and articulation of the national in the Italian-Yugoslav border area. F. Schöningh, 2004, pp. 233-234.
  5. ↑ Tammo Luther: Volkstumsppolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1933-1938: the Germans abroad in the field of tension between traditionalists and national socialists. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 51.
  6. ↑ Tammo Luther: Volkstumsppolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1933-1938: the Germans abroad in the field of tension between traditionalists and national socialists. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 51.
  7. ↑ Sabine Bamberger-Stemmann: The European Nationalities Congress 1925 to 1938. Herder Institute, 2000, p. 266 f.
  8. ↑ ibid
  9. ^ Natali Stegmann: Interpretations of war - founding states - social policy: The hero and victim discourse in Czechoslovakia 1918–1948. Walter de Gruyter, 2010, p. 203.
  10. ↑ Mark Mazower: Hitler's Empire: Europe under the Rule of National Socialism. CH Beck, 2009, p. 52.
  11. ↑ Tammo Luther: Volkstumsppolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1933-1938: the Germans abroad in the field of tension between traditionalists and national socialists. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 51.
  12. ^ Heinrich Lackmann: Ammende, Ewald. in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 1 (1953), p. 253.
  13. ↑ Dan Diner: Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture: Volume 2: Co-Ha. Springer-Verlag, 2016, pp. 285–290.
  14. ^ Michael Garleff: Baltic Germans, Weimar Republic and Third Reich. Volume 2. Böhlau Verlag, 2001. p. 57.
  15. ↑ Rudolf von Thadden , Steffen Kaudelka, Thomas Serrier: Europe of Belongings: Integration paths between immigration and emigration. Wallstein Verlag, 2007, p. 62.
  16. ↑ Ingo Schewiola: How the Second World War was made. Volume 1. LULU, 2010, ISBN 3-00-029884-3 , p. 46
  17. ↑ Sebastian Bartsch: Studies on Social Science. Protection of Minorities in International Politics: League of Nations and CSCE / OSCE from a New Perspective. Springer-Verlag, 2013, p. 107.
  18. ^ German Bundestag, Scientific Services: German Minorities in the Interwar Period. German Bundestag, 2009: https://www.bundestag.de/blob/411708/72a5544c10ee7ae5f13d3aee9badbb80/wd-1-093-09-pdf-data.pdf ; accessed on May 23, 2017.
  19. ↑ Dan Diner: Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture: Volume 2: Co-Ha. Springer-Verlag, 2016, pp. 285–290.
  20. ↑ Tammo Luther. Volkstumsppolitik of the German Reich 1933–1938. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 69 f.
  21. ↑ “Kohen” is incomprehensible - two studies about Konrad Henlein - spy of the British and Gauleiter of the Sudetenland. In: Die Welt -Online; accessed on May 27, 2017.
  22. ↑ Wolfgang Benz et al. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of National Socialism. DTV, 1997, p. 505 f.
  23. ^ Arnold Weingärtner: Nation and State: a monograph. Volumes 17-20. Braumüller, 1979, p. 8.
  24. ^ Michael Garleff: Baltic Germans, Weimar Republic and Third Reich. Volume 2. Böhlau Verlag, 2001. p. 89.
  25. ↑ Organizations Foreign Germans In: Institute for Contemporary History, accessed on May 27, 2017.