page_title: Germans
section_title: Twentieth century
hierarchical_section_title: Germans / History / Twentieth century
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of German Reich 1871–1918. Search terms (selection): Helgoland, Flensburg, Schleswig, Kiel, Provinz Schleswig Holstein, Old, Hansestadt Lübeck, Bremerhaven, Hansestadt Hambürg, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Grhm. Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Schwerin, Stralsund, Kolberg, Pommern, Stettin, Ghm. M.Strelitz, Groningen, The Netherlands, Ems, Osnabrück, Weser, Hannover, Braunschweig, Prv. Sachsen, Magdeburg, Dessauch, Herzogtum Anhalt, Brandenburg, Berlin, Potsdam, Küstrin, Warthe, Oder, Frankfurt, Liegnitz, Schlesien, Kgr. Sachsen, Dresden, Chemnitz, Prag, Elbe, Provinz Westfalen, Fsm. Waldeck, Kassel, Göttingen, Hessen, Marburg, Wetzlar, Gießen, Hessen, Nassau, Main, Coburg, Meiningen, Gotha, Gera, Weimar, Düsseldorf, Köln, Bonn, Rhein, Koblenz, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Rheinprovinz, Belgium, Ghzm. Luxemburg, Posen, Breslau, Oppeln, Beuten, Königshütte, Gleiwitz, Kattowitz, Thorn, Graudenz, Russian Empore, Lodz, Warschau, Kraukau, Königkreich Bayern, Nürnberg, Regensburg, Isar, Donau, Augsburg, München, Darmstadt, Karlsruhe, Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen, Metz, Ghzm. Luxemburg, Kgr. Stuttgart, Württemberg, Ulm, Zürich, Inn, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Linz, Wien, Austrian Empire, Modau, Prag, Elbe, Brünn, Wien, Pressburg
context_page_description: Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture, and history. German is the shared mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans.
  The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire back in the 16th century, German society has been characterized by a Catholic-Protestant divide.
  Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, South Africa, the post-Soviet states, and France, each accounting for at least 1 million. Thus, the total number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied.
  Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities which were earlier part of the Holy Roman Empire, most often subscribe to their own national identities and may or may not also self-identify as ethnically German.
context_section_description: 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 Saint Germain and the Treaty of Versailles. In 1930, three years before the Nazi era, there were roughly 94 million people all over the world claiming German ancestry, or about 4.5% of the world population at the time.
  During the Third Reich, the Nazis, led by Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, attempted to unite all the people they claimed were "Germans" (Volksdeutsche) under the slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer ("One People, One Empire, One Leader"). This policy began in 1938 with Hitler's foreign policy Heim ins Reich ("back home to the Reich") which aimed to persuade all Germans living outside of the Reich to return "home" either as individuals or regions to a Greater Germany. During World War II, Heinrich Himmler who was issued with the policy of "strengthening of ethnic Germandom" created a Volksliste ("German People's List") which was used to classify all those living in the German occupied territories into different categories according to criteria by Himmler. The policy of uniting all Germans included ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe, 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 the Sudetenland with the Czech kingdom, Austria, Poland, Danzig and western Lithuania, particularly the Germans from Klaipeda (Memel). 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, Eastern European countries such as the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia expelled the ethnic Germans from their territories. Many of those had inhabited these lands for centuries, developing a unique culture. Germans were also forced to leave the former eastern territories of Germany, which were annexed by Poland (Silesia, eastern Pomerania, parts of Brandenburg and the southern part of East Prussia) and the Soviet Union (northern part of East Prussia). Between 12 and 16.5 million ethnic Germans and German citizens were expelled westwards to allied-occupied Germany or Austria.
  After World War II, Austrians increasingly saw themselves as a separate nation from the German nation. In 1966, 47% people in Austria viewed themselves as Austrians. In 1990, the number increased to 79%. Recent polls show that no more than 6% of the German-speaking Austrians consider themselves as "Germans". An Austrian identity was vastly emphasized along with the "first-victim of Nazism theory." Today over 80 percent of the Austrians see themselves as an independent nation.
caption: The German Empire of 1871–1918. By excluding the German-speaking part of the multinational Austrian Empire, this geographic construction represented the Kleindeutsche Lösung ("Little German solution")
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