Volksdeutsche

German Borderlands in Distress showcases the areas outside Germany in 1919, inhabited by ethnic Germans but under foreign control. The map was first published in 1920 in Austria (Deutschösterreich) as a reaction to the new borders, set by the enemy after WWI. The Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland, founded in 1881, reproduced it multiple times after 1933.

Volksdeutsche, literally meaning "German-folk," is the German term for ethnic Germans living outside of Germany.

Definition

Volksdeutsche did not hold German or Austrian (or at least German-Swiss) citizenship, but it was important to strengthen their communities, especially throughout east-central Europe. The Volksdeutsche together with the German Reich citizens (Reichsbürger) form the German compatriots (deutsche Landsleute) or Germans of blood (Deutschblutige). Citizens of Germany (FRG) that are not of German or Germanic blood are referred to as "passport Germans" (Paßdeutsche or BRD-Reisepaßinhaber)

World War II

Under the provisions of the [...] Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and [the pact of] 5 September 1940, Germany was granted the right of repatriation of Germans who lived in the Western Ukrainian territories that had been incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Over 250,000 of them moved. A number of Ukrainians (about 10,000) who were able to convince the resettling committees of their mixed parentage, or who presented some other claim, left with the Volksdeutsche. Once in Germany, the Ukrainians were housed in temporary camps. Some of them took German citizenship, but most remained active in Ukrainian circles in the Generalgouvernement. Some Poles who resettled as Volksdeutsche worked in the German administration in Ukrainian territory, where they displayed anti-Ukrainian attitudes. In time the administrative positions of the German occupation were handed over to actual Volksdeutsche.

See also

• Pan-Germanism
• German American
• German Brazilian

Further reading

• Edwin Erich Dwinger: Der Tod in Polen. Die Volksdeutsche Passion, Jena 1940
  • Death in Poland - The Fate of the Ethnic Germans in September 1939 (English-language edition 2004, second printing 2021) is a chronicle of Poland's crimes against its ethnic German minority, with special reference to the "Bromberg Bloody Sunday" (Bromberger Blutsonntag) of 3 September 1939.